The SWEET project ‘Social Work Education Experts by Experience Toolkit’ aims at promoting the involvement of service users in Social work education. The project, financed by the French Erasmus+ Agency, involved 4 European countries: Belgium (Artevelde University of Applied Sciences), France (OCELLIA), Italy (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan), and Sweden (Jönköping University).

In these countries, Social work education is specific, although it is being harmonized as part of the Bologna process, and about the education of future social workers, they are facing common challenges, particularly those related to service users’ participation in the curriculum.

The four partners found in this project the opportunity to strengthen their models and experiences of service users' involvement and to contribute to the diffusion at the European level, developing and sharing conceptual and practice tools. The project, developed in the framework of an inclusive education model aimed to value Experiential knowledge, took place over three years (2020 and 2023) realizing different actions: an overview of pedagogical actions about service users’ involvement in each involved institution; 3 training sessions involving service users, social workers and lecturers; 3 students mobilities in which they experimented service users’ projects in other countries; the development of an online toolbox that can inspire and support lecturers in realizing service users’ participation.

These actions have been realized through a co-creation process involving lecturers, service users, experts by experience, and undergraduate social work students from each country. Several steps of this project have been accompanied by research actions.