Service users

Making connections

Report of Making Connections conference, focused on partnership working with service user and carers in social work education – by Kerry Musselbrook

Keeping it Real

The Keeping It Real conference at Stirling University on 26 April 2017 celebrated Service User and Carer Involvement in Professional Education and the difference it makes.

This was about showcasing good practice, sharing ideas and future ambitions, and discussing key challenges.

Sara Hitchens spoke eloquently (see attached presentation), reflecting back on the first national conference at Stirling University in 2013 (Real Lives: Real Difference) and the learning journey. She identified three essential ingredients for effective service user and carer involvement:

Seeking workshop contributions

You are invited to provide a workshop contribution to a national conference to share and promote best practice in service user and carer involvement in professional education.

The conference will be held on 26 April 2017 at the University of Stirling and bring together service users and carers, students, educators, professionals and policy-makers. It will be relevant to social work, health, education and other areas of professional education, at qualifying and post-qualifying levels.

Workshops should:

Shaping the choreography of care and support

Iriss Forum, Designs for the future 2011

Alison Petch (Iriss Director), Lisa Pattoni and Gayle Rice (Iriss Project Managers) and Ian Grout (Glasgow School of Art) explain the background to this project which involved students from the Glasgow School of Art working with practitioners and people who use services to consider how to reshape care and support. There were four themes: reablement, partnership working and communication, social isolation and anticipatory care.

Getting it right

Assessments for BME carers and service users

Learning resource that provides the necessary skills and knowledge to critically examine how the needs of minority ethnic carers and service users are being met.