Why is client’s participation in social work so important? And which role can the university play to get the involvement of social service’s users? Examples from Zaragoza in Spain
Tomasa Báñez, University of Zaragoza 1) Introduction With my presentation I would like encourage you about the importance of clients’ participation in social work and to present an experience of community work done using participatory action research methodology in Zaragoza (Spain). In the first place, I will present some reasons for clients’ participation in social work, both practical and philosophical reasons, to continue analysing the current situation on this topic in Spain and how we can improve client’s participation in social work and which role the university can play in this process. And I will finish my presentation with an example of clients’ participation, a participatory action research project which has been carrying out in Zaragoza since 18 years ago, with the partnership of practitioners’ social workers and lecturers of social work. 2) Why is client’s participation in social work so important? Clients’ participation in social work has traditionally been very important because of practical and philosophical or ideological reasons (instrumental and intrinsic reasons). Examining some classical authors in social work we can find both reasons for clients’ participation: practical and philosophical. Mary Richmond in her book Case Work underlined the importance of the clients’ participation for the two reasons expressed in the previous paragraph. In the first place, most of the success of the social treatment is because the participation of the clients depending on their personal skills. But listening to the clients and understanding them is an essential part of a democratic method (Richmond, M., 1982: 114-115). Gordon Hamilton from a more pragmatic than ideological point of view