The anthology gives for the first time an overview of gap-mending pedagogy and experiences in six European countries in which social work students and students from service user organisations study, share experiences and develop projects together on an equal level.
Heule and Kristiansen describe in their article Sweden: Power, Experiences and Mutual Development. Using The Concept of Gap-Mending in Social Work Education what they think gap-mending should be about. They focus on a theoretical discussion about both the power of social workers in front of service users and how the latter is also structurally discriminated by social services. In this setup, they claim that the social worker is the expert and the service users are often seen as the problem.
Heule and Kristiansen thus argue, using Hasenfeld (1992) for a “redistribution of power”, where service users obtain more power over their lives.
In the article Heule and Kristiansen also describe and analyse the positive gap-mending experiences that have followed the Mobilisation course given to service users and students enrolled at the School of Social Work. They for example point out that after the course some of the service user students have started new user organisations, and that several of the project concepts developed during the course have received funds to be implemented in practice.