Use Your BY CAROLINE BUTTERWICK Whether it’s leading a discussion with social work students about how to support someone in crisis or sharing our story as part of a campaign, there are lots of ways we can use our experience of living with disability
NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US “Nothing about us without us” is the well-known rallying cry of the disability rights movement. Campaigning led by disabled people has brought historic changes, such as the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995. Our voices should be key to developing and delivering services that support us, or in campaigns to challenge discrimination or make vital changes to the law. My interest in using my lived experience of visual impairment and mental ill health began when I was a student, forming a group with other disabled students to campaign for change. Who better to say how the campus can be made more accessible than those who know the barriers first-hand? For the past two years, I’ve been a member of the Service User and Carer Reference Group (SUCRG) for Think Ahead, a charity that runs a two-year graduate programme in mental health social work, where those with lived experience of mental illness are active in the recruitment and training of future mental health social workers.
The service user movement in mental health stretches back decades, with the “mad politics” of the 60s and 70s and Mad Pride activism of the 90s, evolving into the modern service user movement. Today, those with lived experience of mental distress are involved in everything from recruiting staff to developing training, with service users playing a key role in the recent Independent Review of the Mental Health Act. In SUCRG, we co-produce and co-deliver teaching, helping link lived experience with social work theory. SUCRG members are also involved in assessing prospective participants of the Think Ahead programme, interviewing them and being an active part of the recruitment process. One of my highlights of working with SUCRG was contributing to teaching at Think Ahead’s Summer Institute, where their new cohort of trainee mental health social workers first meet over several weeks to learn about social work ideas before starting their on-the-job training. It was great to share my experience of what makes a good social worker, as well as highlighting some of the negative sides of my experience as a service user and what needs to be better. We all carry our own stories and perspectives, and feedback from participants highlights how much they value hearing these.
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