Engaging experience experts in secondary education

Realising connection with experience experts and learners makes learners' perceptions of care and service users more realistic. 

Experience experts or service users are users of care and welfare who share their experiences through an activating working form in education, such as through co-teaching, bringing a testimony, co-designing course material,... Through preparation and guidance, they can convey their message in the classroom independently and powerfully.  

There is hardly any research on the involvement of experts by experience in secondary education. However, the adolescent phase is a crucial phase to prevent prejudice against certain target groups and to make certain jobs attractive. Especially in humanities disciplines that focus on a final degree, service users are still very rarely used. However, there is a need in education to let young people connect with the reality of care and welfare. In turn, these bottleneck professions need a more realistic image. 

It is a qualitative exploration of the preconditions when using experience experts in education.  A social work student group from the olod Bachelor project (third instalment) will conduct some 20 interviews with teachers, principals and bridge figures. Interviews will also be conducted with organisations for experience experts with mental vulnerability and with experience experts themselves.

These insights will be incorporated into a report.