Lessons Learned From Social Workers Practicing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Overview: This study explores how social work practice has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the effects of remote social work service delivery, the impact of pandemic-related client stressors, and recommendations of social workers for education in the future based on lessons learned while navigating practice during the pandemic.Proposal text: Background and

Purpose: As the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the landscape of mental health throughout the world (Kumar & Nayar, 2021; Moreno et al., 2020), research is beginning to articulate these changes and their effects on mental health practice and teaching of practice (Leitch et al, 2021). For social work, it is essential to understand how COVID-19 has affected practice in order to make recommendations for social work education for the future (Leitch et al., 2021; Shklarski & Ray, 2021). This study explores how social work practice has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic by looking at the intersection of practice and pandemic parameters. Specifically, this study considers the effects of social work practice as delivered remotely to a client base who typically receives in-person services. This study explores how social workers who may not have experience practicing via audiovisual technologies such as Zoom are now using them exclusively to engage with clients and colleagues. The study looks at how this changes the quality of the social worker/client connection as well as the connection between the social worker and their colleagues. Furthermore, this study describes unique pandemic-related medical and socioeconomic stressors for social work clients and discusses how these have altered social work practice with clients experiencing mental health issues like psychoses, anxiety, and depression.

Method: Using an exploratory qualitative approach in order to create rich data in an area with minimal research (Padgett, 2016), researchers interviewed 11 social workers practicing during the fall of 2020. Participants practiced in a range of settings, including medical settings, inpatient treatment settings, and private practice settings. Participants were interviewed via Zoom and asked questions based on a semi-structured interview guide. Questions focused on how social work practice had changed since the COVID-19 pandemic and what recommendations each participant had for social work education for the future based on these experiences. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the thematic approach as described in Braun and Clarke (2008) in order to learn about common elements to practice and create meaning around the experiences participants reported.

Results: Study results indicated a lack of preparation to practice at both individual social worker/client levels and within professional settings among colleagues. Participants reported the importance of ad hoc practice and multidisciplinary teaming in the successful provision of services. Core social work skills, such as resourcefulness and networking, were key to service delivery. Participants also stressed the importance of attitudinal factors, such as openness to change and flexibility, as key to effective practice. Unique challenges in service delivery were also described, such as working remotely with clients experiencing psychosis in which they did not trust audiovisual media.
Implications: Participant’s recommendations for education stressed the importance of developing remote practice skills and attitudes that promote practice via a variety of media. Participants further spoke to the likelihood of the ongoing use of remote service delivery in social work and the need to prepare future social workers to be effective both in-person and remotely.