The Practice Guide

Educational practice in social work is important, particularly for developing positive attitudes to reflexivity and participation based on experience. Education that raises interest in "otherness" generally, and specifically in minority groups, makes an important contribution to advanced social work practice.   The following are examples collected during the project. The reader can find many others in the outcomes O2 and O3.

Choosing a setting

Each process of RPP takes place in a concrete setting and space, whether an educational setting or its neighbourhood, in the community, or concrete social or health services. The appropriate setting can help to overcome barriers and stereotypes related often to the school environment (link to Example of innovative practice (Belgium): 
One way or the other, when service users and/or providers, students and teachers are involved in educational settings, it should be in an open, safe setting, which need not always be in the classroom. Further inspirations of alternative settings mentioned during the project can be found in this link (Settings in educational practice).

It is often difficult to understand issues of representation and working in partnerships authentically. We need to demonstrate commitment to genuine empowerment that can lead to long-lasting student learning (Tanner et al., 2017). If social work educators perform their roles as facilitators and partners inadequately, then students, even those keen to address issues of power and discrimination, will be hindered in their learning. 

To remove such obstacles, there is a need to systemically create meaningful opportunities for change that improve the profession's understanding of the lives of service users. These can lead to mutual learning and empowerment for service users and students. Several models have been suggested that demonstrate ways in which tensions and challenges can be resolved (SCIE, 2004)  

References:

Involving service users and carers in social work education – Thinking about the meaning and level of involvement (scie.org.uk)

Tanner, D., Littlechild, R., Duffy, J., & Hayes, D. (2017). ‘Making it real’: evaluating the impact of service user and carer involvement in social work education. The British Journal of Social Work, 47(2), 467–486.

Confronting issues of power  

It is tempting to think of teaching social work to students as a technicality: "If you know and understand educational principles, then there can be good learning outcomes ". However, this rather simplistic approach will rarely be effective for introducing service user empowerment. From the outset, a more authentic and purposeful approach is to explore your inner world and how you have processed your personal and professional experiences regarding family life, interests in social justice and reasons for engagement with particular, disadvantaged groups.

Academics and professionals teaching social work students must consider these identity questions and general social attitudes in these engagements. Of crucial concern are issues of power in the development of these relationships. It is generally the case that academics and professionals are more powerful than students and service users. Historically they have created and recreated the language used to describe problems and interventions; conversely, service users and students are relatively powerless in influencing the knowledge base, language and decision-making processes.

This is a core issue that has to be addressed from the outset of the engagement. Imbalances of power should be explained and understood fully, and present and future obstacles to learning and action should be identified and challenged. For example, this might include clarity about the use of language, the creation of spaces for debate and resolution of conflicts, and agreement about levels of involvement in planning, delivery and assessment of learning.

References: 

Why intersectionality matters for social work practice in adult services – Social work with adults (blog.gov.uk)

Charter, M.L. (2021). "Exploring the importance of feminist identity in social work education." Journal of Teaching in Social Work 41, no. 2 (2021): 117–134.

There are no easy ways of delivering authentic service user participation in social work education. A crucial beginning point is to find agreement about the collaboration terms, the best outcomes, and how a safe space can be created to allow for positive experiences and learning. 

The issue of appropriate ground rules is crucial in this respect:

For instance, all involved in the partnership, including academics, students, and service users, should agree on self-disclosure levels. This could allow for a "pedagogy of discomfort"(Coulter et al., 2013), by which is meant that recognizing and challenging feelings is an essential part of experiential learning but needs to be kept within safe boundaries. We suggest explicit statements about 

• rules of confidentiality,
• speaking for oneself and not for others,
• owning one's experiences,
• understanding the affective as well as the cognitive content of encounters,
• ensuring that everyone involved understands the principles of duty to care.

It is likely that, even when such principles are operationalized, there will be moments when conflicts become problematic and sometimes hard to resolve. This requires processes of safe conflict resolution and opportunities for debriefing.

Link to: Dealing with conflict at work (communitycare.co.uk)

Example: Service user engagement with women in recovery from addiction: a social work module component from Ireland – application of RPP.