Involving service users and carers in social work education

Quality assurance

As part of their comprehensive strategy, programmes have set up partnership or management boards to oversee all stages of design and delivery of the degree, including quality assurance. The service user and carer members participate along with others in developing these mechanisms. Only at the end of the first year of the degree programme, will it be possible to compare emerging approaches, and assess how they work. In 2006, when the first social work degrees are awarded, fuller information will become available on how service user and carer involvement in quality assurance works and the value that it adds to the processes and their outcomes.