Teaching
I have worked as a teacher at Lund University since 2004. I am involved in teaching on different levels of the program of social workers in Lund. At the moment I am responsible for two courses in the curricilum; "Perspectives on social problems and social work intervention" and the so called "Mobilization course". The first is a big course with approximately 140 students every semester. The second is an elective course that is given to social work students and service users.
I initiated the Mobilization Course together with colleagues in an EU-funded project together with several service user organizations. The course, started as a radical attempt to include the perspectives of service users in social work education at the School of Social Work at the University of Lund. By its construction the Mobilization course aims to challenge common views of the client as someone with problems and the professional as an expert of these problems. The pedagogic includes creating community, trust and mutual knowledge development between the different student groups. Instead of focusing on the problems of individuals the focus is on creating community, inclusion and development projects in co-production. Since the start in 2005, the Mobilization Course has been given 21 times. A total of 750 students have attended the course. 500 students have been social work students. 250 have been students from service user organizations.
The Mobilization Course has developed into an action research oriented platform for gap-mending based networking and development of co-production solutions to social problems. Several project ideas developed within the Mobilization Course has been realized in different services. Some new service user organizations have also developed from ideas that emerged in the course. Former service user students take part in other courses at the School of Social Work at Lund University, as guest lecturers and mentors after the course.
The international network PowerUs
In 2011 I initiated and coordinated a three years Leonardo project which led to the start of the international network PowerUs. Initially the network existed of colleagues from three countries from Lillehammer University in Norway, the British service user organization Shaping our Lives, Lund University and the social enterprice Basta from Sweden. Today, PowerUs is an international network of teachers and researchers from schools of social work and representatives from different service user organizations. Today, PowerUs consists of partners from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Switzerland, Sweden, and the UK. I coordinate the network together with my colleague Helen Case from the Open University, London.
PowerUs develops methods of mutual learning in order to change social work practice to be more effective in supporting the empowerment of marginalized and discriminated groups in society. Acknowledging direct experience as a valuable source of knowledge and involving service-users in education & research, provides social work-students with an understanding of the social issues that goes beyond the purely theoretical. It also empowers the service users too see that their experience-based knowledge is valued.
PowerUs have had many action oriented projects together with global organizations like EASSW (European Association for Schools of Social Work) IASSW (International Association of Schools of Social Work) and IFSW (International Federation for Social Workers). We have written letters of intent with both EASSW and IASSW in order to raise awareness of service user perspectives in social work curriculum around the world. Examples of this has been producing a 13 minutes long film for the opening of the Milan conference for Schools of Social work in 2015; a photo exhibition in the Paris conference for Schools of Social work in 2017. In 2023 I have been coordinating a webinar series about "Critical perspectives on service user participation", a co-production between PowerUs and IASSW.
The concept of Gap-mending
Within PowerUs we introduced the concept gap-mending for methods of inclusion that result in a more equal practice. The gap-mending concept is an analytical tool that helps teachers, researchers, students and service users to reflect upon what, in their practices, increases, maintains or mends gaps between policies, services and professionals – and of course– service users and students. Gaps exist in a context. Contextual knowledge is essential in gap-mending reflections, as well as a good understanding of existing gaps. Gaps can be maintained because of prejudices based on social work’s categorization of people, because of language barriers, because of institutional hierarchies and the roles we have created for people within them. They can also exist because of lack of knowledge. Multiple perspectives on different social issues offer a more complex picture. A step in this direction can be the power of narrative when people become a part of writing their own history, and taking charge in how they want to be perceived.
Research
My research interests include issues of power, community development, gap-mending, service user inclusion, co-production, change management, and agency for organizations and individual organizational representatives. My dissertation is called "Staged inclusion. Community as a goal and challenge in the social work education", and focuses on gap-mending within the education of social workers.
My doctoral thesis is an action oriented qualitative study about gap-mending mechanisms during the interaction between the students in the Mobilization course. Link to the thesis
I have been developing service user participation and gap-mending in the national development of Housing First since 2009 . Since 2022, I am active in a FORTE-funded project called RECO - Resilient communities through sustainable welfare transformation a granted research project funded by FORTE: "RECO: Resilient Communities by Sustainable Welfare Transformation" I am responsible for a part of the project where so called RECO-labs will be organized that will will engage service users, practitioners and other stakeholders in a common and mutual learning process to contribute to new forms of work for quality development and co-production.
I am involved in an ERASMUS Strategic Partnership called “Experiential Knowledge in Higher Education” that is running 2021 – 2024. It is a cooperation between 12 higher education institutes in 10 different countries, and their local partners, sharing and developing approaches of personalised learning and inclusive education, with an emphasis on experiential knowledge. Within this partnership the goal is to identify key principles and to design a framework for the integration of experiential knowledge in the context of personalized inclusive education. In May 2024 we are organizing a three days international conference at Lund University about "Experiential knowledge and peer support": https://www.lu.se/evenemang/conference-peer-support-and-experiential-knowledge
I have also initiated an international network that I currently coordinate together with my British colleague Helen Casey, called PowerUs. PowerUs brings together different actors in order to exchange and develop joint actions regarding serviceuser participation and experience-based knowledge in education and research.
Other social work experiences
I am a social worker, and during the years 1987 - 1994 I lived in Amsterdam where I worked with vulnerable groups and voluntary social work. I trained as a social worker in Lund in the late 1990s. Since 2002, I work at the School of Social Work in Lund and have collaborated with about fifty service user oranizations, both through evaluation assignments and through service user inclusion in the education of social workers.
Other work experiences with relevance to social work include having worked as a contracted youth shelter during the years 2013 -2018. This took place in my home in Ystad where I lived with my family, which also consisted of my own five children.
During 2007 - 2015 I was chair of the journal Socialpolitik, which was then run by editor Maria Wallin. I have also been a boardmember of several service user organisations such as RFHL, Comintegra and Fountain House.
Since 2023 I council staff within the social psychiatry department regularly in Lunds municipality.
Awards
2013 I got a prize togheter with Arne Kristiansen by NASSW (Nordic Associations for Schools of Social Work) for developing the Mobilization course and the pedagogy of gap-mending.
2014 the Mobilization course was awareded at the street paper gala "Faktumgalan" in Gothenburg.
2014 I was awarded by the faculty as "recognised teacher".
2015 I was awarded the honorary prize by CSA (Centralförbundet socialt arbete) (https://www.csa.se/hedersstipendium/csas-hedersstipendium-till-cecilia-…)