Increasing lived experience involvement in social work
One of our lived experience partners, Rebecca Regler, recently spoke at the Community Care Live conference. The conference is held in London annually and is a popular event for social workers and students.
She was invited to contribute after submitting a successful abstract, and chose to speak about increasing lived experience participation in social work as this is a topic she is passionate about.
Exploring co-production
Co-production sounds so technical and unrelatable somehow, when really it should be a simple principle that is part and parcel of service provision. Who better to help inform the care and support available to people than those living it?
Rebecca discussed how implementing coproduction has potential across all areas of social work, including at a strategic and organisational level, within education and training, research and frontline practice.
There are ways to increase participation with people with lived experience across all these levels and Rebecca gave some practical suggestions on how to implement coproduction principles.
She said ‘I wanted to talk about how coproduction doesn’t just exist on a strategic level. It can also be utilised within the professional relationship between social workers and service users. It can be a useful method of increasing people’s participation in their care and support’.
‘When I was involved more meaningfully in my care and support, I felt heard and that my voice was valued.
Having a voice
Rebecca shared her experiences of becoming disabled and having a social worker. She also shared her lived experience of coproduction with professionals she has worked with.
She says ‘When I was involved more meaningfully in my care and support, I felt heard and that my voice was valued. Ultimately, it meant that my support plan was more effective as it was personalised to my needs due to it being coproduced with me.’
Rebecca also shared her experiences of working in coproduction within social work education, including her role with Think Ahead.
She explained ‘being involved in social work education has been very meaningful to me. It has helped me find a sense of purpose in the difficult experiences I have had as I am now using them to benefit the education of future social workers.’
Rebecca has been a member of our Lived Experience Partnership since 2019.
In that time, she’s contributed to a wide range of work: supporting assessments for our trainees, inputting into consultations and reviews of our charity’s work, and interviewing potential head office staff members.
Helping bring a lived experience perspective to our work and the flagship programme, Rebecca has always brought a passion and thoughtfulness to the role.