Full Description
This book focusses on social work in the time of COVID-19. Social workers, their clients, and the organisations they represent have been affected by the pandemic in multiple ways. The pandemic and various efforts to curb the viral outbreak, such as face masks and lockdowns, have forced social workers to adapt to a 'new normal', launch new practices, mobilise social support and networks remotely, and above all, defend the most vulnerable populations. This requires an understanding of how social work and its clients are prepared for, capable to respond to, and further, to recover from a societal crisis and human disasters, like a coronavirus pandemic.
Divided into three parts, it provides a wealth of knowledge related to social work in different local and cultural contexts during the period of the global pandemic. With experienced social work researchers across a diversity of settings, contexts, and research traditions, the book is reflective of the 'glocal' response of social work. Offering new perspectives on challenges social workers have faced in dealing with the pandemic, it makes critical and timely insights into the innovations and adaptations in social work responses, with a strong empirical basis.
It will be of interest to all social work scholars, students, and practitioners.
Contents
1.Introduction: Social Work through a Pandemic: Living with Complexity, Mobilising Adaptive Capacity, and Promoting Social Resilience? Section One - Policies and Governance Framing Social Work Practice. 2.Social Workers' Response to COVID-19 in Slovenia: The Interconnectedness of Macro, Mezzo, and Micro Levels of Practice. 3.COVID-19 Social Work in the Expanding Neoliberal Welfare States. 4.Development of Digital Social Work in the Early Phase of COVID-19 Pandemic in Slovenia and Finland. Section Two - Voices from the Field: Facing Challenges and Creating Solutions. 5.UK Social Worker Burnout and Coping during the First Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic. 6.Social Work during Triple Lockdown: A Restatement of Discourses in Estonia? 7.Teams Interrupted: Social Work Teams as Communities of Practice and Coping during COVID-19. 8.Social Work during Crises: Good Practices and Bottlenecks According to Social Workers in Flanders, Belgium. Section Three - Vulnerabilities and Adaptive Capacities at the Client Interface. 9.Social Workers' Context of Practice during COVID-19 in Iran. 10.Experiences of Social Service Officers working at Safe Home during COVID-19 in Bangladesh. 11.Social Vulnerability of Older Adults and COVID-19: Findings from Surveys of Professionals Providing Care in Japan. 12.Social Work and Lost Contacts with Clients during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Shared Trauma from Three Different Civil Society Organisations. Section Four - Restarting the Dynamics, Relationships, and Connectivity in Social Work. 13.'And I Say, "Yes" Because I Want to Help'—Social Workers Reflections on Practice in Ireland during COVID-19. 14.Transformative Disruption?—Reflections on Care in Social Work under a COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown. 15.A Shift in Social Interaction in Social Work during the COVID-19 Pandemic. 16.COVID-19 as a Game Changer for the Digitalisation of Social Work. Section Five - Conclusion. 17.Social Work through Pandemic: Conclusions, Lessons Learned, and Future Orientations.
