Service User Involvement as a Method for Teaching the Importance of Communication Skills
Keywords:
communication; service users; innovationAbstract
The authors discuss how they adapted a United Kingdom teaching strategy of centering client voice in their course. “Service users,” individuals who use or who have used services such as mental health or addiction recovery programs, shared their experiences of working with professional social workers through a structured conversation. Afterward, the class participated in a focus group to process the impact. The researchers coded the focus group transcripts, and themes of communication emerged, including areas of task-centered, stylistic, and humanistic communication. The authors suggest this teaching method would be beneficial in other disciplines to enhance preparedness for professional communication skills.
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References
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