Introduction

In March 2018, the Karel de Grote University College in Antwerp initiated an international dialogue between social work lecturers, researchers and experts by experience (EBE) about the benefits and obstacles of service-user involvement in social work education and research. Approximately 20 EBE with different sociodemographic characteristics and backgrounds from the UK, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy participated and discussed the involvement of people with lived experiences in many different contexts. Among the participants there was an overall agreement regarding the benefits, but we also identified a number of factors that hinder the integration of EBE in education and research. These factors are linked to cultural and societal structures, which is why we think that they need to be made more explicit. Before elaborating the obstacles that EBE encounter in their activities, we elaborate on two important beneficial factors.

Terminology

Each country uses a specific term to refer to people with lived experiences in the social service and mental healthcare system, for example: service users, experiential experts, experts by experience, peers or service users. For the purpose of this chapter, we stick with the term experts by experience because it stresses the expertise that people with lived experiences have, and it encompasses a greater variety of people. After all, not every EBE is still a service user. An EBE is understood as a person with lived experiences in social and mental healthcare services from which he or she has developed insights which they use as a resource to support others or to inform the broader services and institutions in general (for example, Sedney et al, 2016; Videmšek, 2017).

Vision social change

Facilitating service-user participation and co-production in social work education and research, as well as in the practice of social work, is considered an integral component of today's policies and guidelines for social work in several European countries (Beresford and Carr, 2018). Developments in social work practices and policies have a direct impact on education. In order to adequately prepare students for their future fieldwork and their role and position as care providers, establishing a connection with what is happening in the field and with citizens is crucial.