HIGHLIGHTING Trevor Jones Inspiratioal work AT PAIN.

[Alison J Stevens]

Sir or Madam

We would be grateful if you could kindly forward this memorandum to the Chair and all Task Force Members:


SERVICE USER INVOLVEMENT IN SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION



We have applauded the setting up of the DCSF Social Work Taskforce to review frontline social work practice and training as it supports our campaign to improve the quality of social workers that we began in our meeting with the Child Proceedings Review Team at Selbourne House in November 2005.



However we are disappointed that the Interim Report from the SWTF makes no mention of the potential contribution that service users can give in improving social work training. Many training experts see this involvement as a means of improving skills within the social worker workforce and it has long been identified as an effective means of changing the culture of services. Furthermore, research has shown that there is substantial value for student learning in hearing the perspectives of those parents, carers, families and children who have experienced child protection investigation.



We see that the low priority therefore given to the voice of these service users ignores the message we continuously hear from social work students who find such input extremely beneficial to what lies ahead for them. This it should be reminded is against a background of recent surveys that say that only a third of newly qualified social workers think that their social work course had prepared them for employment.



PAIN (Parents Against Injustice) has been established for almost a quarter of a century and each year deals with several hundred cases where parents and carers are falsely accused of child abuse. In the course of our work in promoting the idea of service users assisting in social work training we have found a wide variation in academic engagement with this form of service user involvement. On the one hand we have received great encouragement from universities such Leicester University who are eager to invite our members along to participate in the training of their social work students but other universities such as London Metropolitan University have been obstructive which can only be perceived, rightly or wrongly, as unwelcoming.



To gain the greatest benefit from service user involvement in social work student training all social work departments across academia should be involved so that the approach is homogenous.



At PAIN we have been very encouraged by the feedback from such initiatives. One service user we have supported for over two years informs us that the students on a social work course in East London told her that they learnt more from her contribution than from non-service users invited in to speak or indeed from desk based study. It is with this knowledge of positive outcome together with the desire for input from service users that we believe social work training will be greatly improved and that consequently future children will be much better protected.



We hope that the SWTF carries forward our call for the involvement of service users in the training of the social worker workforce into its Final Report.



Trevor Jones

PAIN National Co-ordinator

35 Hanley Road London N4 3DU

www.parentsagainjustice.org.uk

http://parentsagainstinjustice.spaces.live.com

http://parentsagainstinjustice.ning.com/

email: [e-mail]

Parent Helpline: 07906 44 1056 (9.30am to 9.30pm)

PAIN supports and advises parents and carers who find themselves falsely accused of abusing their children. Our Chair, Alison Stevens, has been short-listed for the prestigious 2009 Inspirational Woman of the Year Award for her work at PAIN.