Involving young people in professional education through social media

Young people’s participation in social work education is needed to nurture professionals capable of responding to the needs and perspectives of young service users and promoting community engagement.

Pauline Franklin, Senior Lecturer, Rosa Hossain, Research Fellow, and Esther Coren, Reader in the Faculty of Health and Wellbeing, systematically examined research on the use of social and digital media technologies, and also reviewed social media currently available.The aim was to use this to promote young people’s participation in professional education.

As part of the study funded by the Nominet Trust, young service users were involved, providing a service user's perspective and evaluating selected websites. The review found limited evidence of using digital and social media to promote young people’s participation.

Adult-led projects were typically limited in their efforts or capacity to work together with young people in order to produce knowledge and skills for social change, while many youth-led initiatives suffered from lack of continuity and cohesion.

Both types of initiatives were often guided by individualistic and consumerist models of participation. More practice innovation utilising social media is needed to identify methods enabling broad, sustained, and well-supported participation by young people in professional education.