Participating and Learning - Citizen Involvement in Social Work Education in the Northern Ireland Context

This guidance is designed to complement established good practice initiatives in the involvement of service users and carers in Social Work training on Degree programmes in Northern Ireland. Based on research conducted with service users, carers, students, agency and academic partners, the guide focuses on the key values which need to accompany such involvement as well as including case studies of good practice to show how service users and carers have been
effectively involved to date at all levels of social work training in Northern Ireland. The guide will include key Themes and accompanying Guidelines, which should be considered by everybody in the process of achieving meaningful involvement of service users and carers in social work education.
Additionally the guide addresses ways in which service users and carers as citizens can contribute to assisting social work students studying their Degree in Social Work to understand issues around the Northern Ireland context, i.e. how people have been affected by a protracted period of conflict in this country. The latter is a particular requirement for all qualifying social work students in Northern Ireland in the Framework Specification for the Degree in Social Work (DHSSPS, 2003)
As people frequently move between their role as carer and service user, this publication also introduces the term citizen in its title to describe both. Citizen also implies constancy, rights and entitlements.