Using Lived Experience to help make positive change in Adult Social Care.

February 17, 2025 admin

Date:

March 26, 2025

Time:

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

An opportunity to hear from Richard and Hannah and their work on the “making it real Board at Stockport Council and Colleagues from Gaddum (www.Gaddum.org.uk) sharing their insights on a commissioning projecct “You are helping me by listening”

All are eager to answer your questions on what they look for from a their social worker and what makes ‘you’ the right person to support them.During the panel Q&A session:

Each panel member will provide a brief introduction and share their lived experience

Answer questions from those in attendance

Answer questions submitted ahead of the event

Panel members:

Lived experience colleagues from Gaddum (Gaddum – Gaddum) Sofija Zindule and Kenzye Roberts, sharing insights of their work with commissioners and project – “You are helping me by Listening”.

HannahCummins is the co-chair of the Stockport Making-it-Real Board and also the co-trainer of Stockport Gloriously Ordinary Lives training program specifically aimed at Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council social care team. Prior to her current roles, she has many years experience in the health and social care sector. She has a range of long-term health conditions and invisible disabilities. Away from co-chairing, and co-training duties, she enjoys horse-riding in particular as well as reading and gaming. She was recently awarded the title of Stockport Gloriously Ordinary Lives ambassador for 2024

Richard Currie has over 40 years lived experience of living with a physical impairment and social and emotional distress. He has over 20 years experience of using Direct Payment to support him to live inter-dependently. Prior ot his current role, he worked as a lived experience researcher for the Mcpin Foundation. He has published numerous book chapters and articles in the field of mental health and disability studies. He is a lifetime member of the Great Manchester Coalition of Disabled People and a trustee of Breakthrough UK, a disabled people organisation that help support those with a long term health condition and/or disability into employment.

To register for this event please follow this link Using Lived Experience to help make positive change in Adult Social Care. Tickets, Wed, Mar 26, 2025 at 1:00 PM | Eventbrite

About the Author

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Race & Inequality

How is racism understood in literature about the experiences of black and minority ethnic social work students in Britain? A Conceptual review.

Dr Dharman Jeyasingham and Dr Julie Morton (Social Work Education, 38 (5), pp 563-575)

Abstract

This article presents findings from a study which explored the everyday ways race works on social work programmes in England. The study focused on how race was spoken about and conceptualised, how people were categorised and ordered according to race and the social interactions where race was understood by participants to be significant. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight social work lecturers and nineteen black social work students at two universities in England, to explore the following topics: classroom-based and practice learning, assessment and feedback, interactions between students and between students and educators, and university and practice agency cultures. Data were analysed using thematic analysis and the following themes identified: the routine interpellation of black students and communities in terms of absolute cultural differences, black students’ everyday experiences of marginalisation, hostility and othering, and the racialisation of black students in judgements made about their academic and practice performance. The article concludes that social work education must engage more deeply with contemporary theorisations of race and culture, and that social work educators need a reflexive understanding of how notions such as diversity, equality and universal academic standards are put into practice in ways that marginalise and devalue black students.

Link to Research Article:
https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/64217/?template=banner

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Children Social Work and Agile Working

Children’s social workers agile working practice and experiences beyond the office

Dr Dharman Jeyasingham, The British Journal of Social Work, Volume 49, Issue 3, April 2019, Pages 559-576, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcy077

Abstract

Agile working (flexibility around practitioners’ roles and the location and time of work) is increasingly common across local authority social work in the UK but there is little evidence about the practices it entails, with the small amount of existing research concerned largely with its impact on office environments. This article presents findings from a qualitative exploratory study of eleven social workers’ practices and experiences when engaged in agile working away from office spaces. Data were generated through practitioner diaries, photographs elicited from practitioners and semi-structured interviews, and were analysed using a grounded theory approach. The study found practitioners engaged in agile working in a wide range of domestic, leisure and formal work environments across the public–private continuum. This gave them superficial control over how they worked, in particular the freedom to work in solitude and establish distance between themselves and perceived demands from service users and other practitioners. However, agile working also involved a wider range of material practices and affective experiences for practitioners. These changes provoke questions about data security, increased visibility and unanticipated encounters in public spaces, and the shifting relationship between information-management work and elements of practice involving face-to-face interaction with others.

Link to Research Article: Seeking Solitude and Distance from Others: Children’s Social Workers’ Agile Working Practices and Experiences beyond the Office | The British Journal of Social Work | Oxford Academic (oup.com)

Dr Dharman Jeyasingham of University of Manchester was the lead the ESRC funded project “Becoming agile in local authority children’s safeguarding social work services: examining organisational and individual change in public sector social work”. Details on this project can be found here: GtR (ukri.org)

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