Fri 28th October, 2011
The University of Bedfordshire’s Centre for the Development of Social Care Practice is taking a radical approach to building on the success of its social work courses.
The Centre runs an Experts by Experience (XbX) group which is made up of people who use social care services or who care for service users. This group directly informs the social work courses, and the members recently ran an Open day which was held at the University.
Jacqueline Smith, Manager of the Centre, said: “XbX meet regularly to think about and plan how we can help social work students be the kind of workers we know we need. We help them to learn and assess that learning alongside the academics.
“We get involved in assessing students ‘readiness for placement’, we listen to and help to assess their presentations on a range of topics and we help to review their portfolios - especially the parts which show how they understand service users’ lives.”
The XbX Open day was organised by the group members with the aim of raising awareness of the group and how they contribute to teaching and learning in the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences (HSS).
Professor Michael Preston-Shoot, Dean of the HSS faculty, opened the event and said: “I’m delighted to launch this event - the XbX group contributes significantly to teaching, research and shaping our social work programme.”
Raquel is part of the group and she explained why XbX was important to her. She said: “Being involved in XbX has reminded me that I am a human being. I feel valued, not invalid.”
Jacqueline added: “We would love more people to join the group and will be organising another open day for our Bedford campus social work teams, students and community based organisations.”
To find out more contact the student social work office on 01582 743372 or visit www.beds.ac.uk/xbx
Latest news» 2011» October» Local social work experience impacts on Uni courses
