Social work education in England is in crisis. Courses are closing. Fast-track schemes are costly and out of control. Would-be social workers are having to turn away from training because of the inadequacy and uncertainty of the bursary system. Meanwhile, as concerns about the future of the profession grow, children and adults are put at increasing risk as statutory services continue to be cut.
Yet at the recent European Association of Schools for Social Work conference in Paris, a major new approach to social work education was proposed, one that is already pointing the way forward in a growing number of UK universities. This is the “gap-mending” approach developed by PowerUs, the European network of social work educators and service users.
The idea of gap mending is about bridging divisions between service users and social work students through new approaches to user involvement. It represents an alternative to the current emphasis on elite or fast-track options by prioritising user insight over academic qualifications.
The method was developed at Lund University in Sweden in 2005 as a method of teaching that would bring service users and social work students together to learn as equals. A similar course was set up in 2009 at Lillehammer University College, Norway, and in 2011 the disabled people’s organisation Shaping Our Lives took the lead in England. There are gap-mending courses at New College Durham and London South Bank University, with more planned in the coming years.
Key gaps the approach has identified are:
- Between needs and resources: too often resources available for social work don’t match the need for services. This often follows a mismatch between the high social priority social work demands and the low priority it is given.
- Between service users and providers: because of the power differences and frequent lack of overlap between them.
- Between expert and experiential knowledge: more weight and authority is given to traditional expert and professional knowledge.
- Between researchers and research subjects, which undermines the relevance, sensitivity and impact of research.
On gap-mending courses, service users and students learn together how to overcome the problems these gaps can create.
Service users get formal recognition and accreditation for the skills they offer and those they gain. They learn skills that can help them deal better with the difficulties they face, as well as transferable skills, which have led some on to do social work and other courses. Their first-hand skills in making sense of their situation, coping with and dealing with it also provide a key knowledge source for would-be professionals.
Perhaps most important is the process of building trust and understanding between service users and would-be social workers, which is likely to have a profound effect on future relations and practice.
As service users and students put it in a new report:
My bad experiences of homelessness are now valued as an asset in the education of future social workers.
I’m involved in education because I want to avoid making the same mistakes as the social workers I met before. Here, I’m working on the future.
Education is an ideal place to provide students with respect [for] and insight into life on the edge of society and the difficult path of reintegration.
I want to tell students how important it is that they are willing to listen, to be understanding and patient. These skills will enable them to make a difference.
Students opened up and became more authentic because I showed myself authentic. My advice: Be yourself and try not to be a perfect social worker.
My social worker was my lifeline; I think it is really important that I share my experiences with students so they know what good social work is.
When I started studying social work I thought I was vulnerable because of my personal experience as a service user. Now I know that my experience is my strength. I want to inspire students that everything is possible as long as you believe in yourself!
I’ve learned more on the streets than in any classroom. It was my own experience of mental health issues and crime that motivated my interest in helping others.
In recent years, social work has become a political football, kicked about more in pursuit of ideological ends than to support the needs of those who desperately need help. The gap-mending project suggests this is another area where the UK seems increasingly out of step with progressive developments in Europe. Yet UK social work education has pioneered user and carer involvement in the past. It is time for policymakers to listen more to service users, just as social work educators are increasingly doing.
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