Addressing Barriers to Participation: Service User Involvement in Social Work Training

This article describes how an individual service user, employed by a university, assembled a diverse group of people wanting to make a difference in social work education, who designed and delivered a module together. It discusses the often simple, but always effective barriers to participation, that hamper the involvement of service users and carers in processes that impact on their lives. It goes on to give a very positive example of the involvement of young care leavers-a lesser-heard voice-in social work teaching, and demonstrates that while involvement is always a good thing, good involvement invariably leads to improvement.