Abstract

Background: The purpose of this exploratory study was to establish the state of US social work faculty perceptions on service user empowerment and consumerism. Despite the trademark of the profession being service user-oriented, United States’ social work curricula lacks service user inclusion in the education of social workers. Methods: This was a cross-sectional exploratory study involving 404 social work faculty across the United States. In addition to demographic variables, the instrument used consisted of a questionnaire informed by existing literature. Results: The maximum possible composite score for this study was 50. The mean composite score was 41.977 (SD = 3.647), with the median score of 42 and the mode being 45 (N = 53 or 13.766% of participants). The lowest recorded score was 22 and the highest recorded score was 50, setting the range at 28. Conclusion: Overall, findings show that sampled social work faculty are mostly in favor of service user empowerment and consumerism (mean composite score percentage of 76.322%). More research is needed in the topic area, beginning with faculty perceptions of service user inclusion in social work organizations and social work education, thereafter, expanding the scope of study to include sampled service users, students, and carers.

Document Type

Article

Source Publication

Psychology and Behavioral Science International Journal

Version

Published Version

Publication Date

9-5-2019

Volume

13

Issue

1

First Page

1

Last Page

4

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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