Hutchison, Sonia (2014) How can I work participatively with carers to improve the education of social work students? In: Research and Enterprise Conference: Collaboration and Impact, 4 July 2014, University of Cumbria, Lancaster. (Unpublished) Full text not available from this repository.
(Contact the author)Abstract
I have been working participatively with carers to improve education for social work students for nine years. Within this context, this paper explores the generation of living theories of care giving (Hutchison, 2013) using a values based approach which enables carers to tell and use their stories to give social work students a deep learning of what it is like to be a carer and what carers need from social workers to improve their lives. The research uses a living theory methodology Whitehead (1989, 2013). We tell our stories and encourage students to develop a values based practice which respects and empathises with carers to improve our learning, the learning of the students and the learning framework for social work students. As a group
we want the social work students to understand there is no single story (Adichie, 2009) of caring. We are influenced by Dadds’ and Hart’s (2001) ideas on ‘methodological inventiveness’ which stresses the importance of generating our own methodologies for exploring the implications
of our questions. We are also influenced by creating a participative reality (Heron, 1996) where power is balanced between everyone in the learning process. As individuals seeking to live our values of care-giving this paper provides
a unique analytic framework which includes the clarification and communication of our individual expressions of ‘care-giving’, with digital visual data and empathetic resonance (Huxtable 2009). Our research findings have shown the social work students learning is improved through the participation of carers. More subtly a deeper learning is evident which finds learning occurs for the carers involved, the Carers’ Centre and the learning of the lecturers at the university. The method of carers being in charge of the
planning, delivery and evaluation of this learning is evidence of a participative reality (Heron, 1996) being lived in practice.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Departments: | Research Centres > Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) |
| Depositing User: | Anna Lupton |
| Date Deposited: | 16 May 2016 15:01 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Jan 2024 12:46 |
| URI: | https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/2183 |
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