1st Edition
Social Work During COVID-19 Glocal Perspectives and Implications for the Future of Social Work
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.
Chapter One – Introduction: Social Work through a Pandemic: Living with Complexity, Mobilising Adaptive Capacity, and Promoting Social Resilience?
Timo Harrikari
Section One - Policies and Governance Framing Social Work Practice
Chapter Two – Social Workers’ Response to COVID-19 in Slovenia: The Interconnectedness of Macro, Mezzo, and Micro Levels of Practice
Tadeja Kodele, Vesna Leskošek, Tamara Rape Žiberna and Nina Mešl
Chapter Three – COVID-19 Social Work in the Expanding Neoliberal Welfare States
Melinda Madew, Marcin Boryczko and Daniela Gaba
Chapter Four – Development of Digital Social Work in the Early Phase of COVID-19 Pandemic in Slovenia and Finland
Vera Fiorentino, Vesna Leskošek, Sanna Saraniemi, Marjo Romakkaniemi and Timo Harrikari
Section Two – Voices from the Field: Facing Challenges and Creating Solutions
Chapter Five – UK Social Worker Burnout and Coping during the First Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Paula McFadden, Ruth Neill and Jill Manthorpe
Chapter Six – Social Work during Triple Lockdown: A Restatement of Discourses in Estonia?
Reeli Sirotkina, Airi Mitendorf and Kersti Kriisk
Chapter Seven – Teams Interrupted: Social Work Teams as Communities of Practice and Coping during COVID-19
Laura L. Cook and Sara Carder
Chapter Eight – Social Work during Crises: Good Practices and Bottlenecks According to Social Workers in Flanders, Belgium
Michiel Massart, Inge Pasteels, Kim Bastaits and Bart Put
Section Three – Vulnerabilities and Adaptive Capacities at the Client Interface
Chapter Nine – Medical Social Workers' Context of Practice during COVID-19 in Iran
Sareh Abri and Maryam Zabihi Poursaadati
Chapter Ten – Experiences of Social Service Officers working at Safe Home during COVID-19 in Bangladesh
Priyanka Bhattacharjee and Tulshi Kumar Das
Chapter Eleven – Social Vulnerability of Older Adults and COVID-19: Findings from Surveys of Professionals Providing Care in Japan
Junko Wake and Mie Ohwa
Chapter Twelve – Social Work and Lost Contacts with Clients during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Shared Trauma from Three Different Civil Society Organisations
Kristofer Hansson and Charlotte C. Petersson
Section Four – Restarting the Dynamics, Relationships, and Connectivity in Social Work
Chapter Thirteen – ‘And I Say, "Yes" Because I Want to Help’—Social Workers' Reflections on Practice in Ireland during COVID-19
Joseph Mooney, Declan Coogan, Caroline McGregor and Olive Lyons
Chapter Fourteen – Transformative Disruption?—Reflections on Care in Social Work under a COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown
Andreas Møller Jørgensen, Mie Engen and Maria Appel Nissen
Chapter Fifteen – A Shift in Social Interaction in Social Work during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Līga Rasnača, Mareks Niklass and Endija Rezgale-Straidoma
Chapter Sixteen – COVID-19 as a Game Changer for the Digitalisation of Social Work
Anna-Karin Bergman, Lupita Svensson and Sanna Melling
Section Five - Conclusion
Chapter Seventeen – Social Work through Pandemic: Conclusions, Lessons Learned, and Future Orientations
Timo Harrikari
Biography
Timo Harrikari, PhD, is a Professor of Social Work at the University of Lapland and Research Professor in Child Welfare at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare THL, Finland.
Joseph Mooney, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Social Work at University College Dublin, Ireland, and a former social work practitioner.
Malathi Adusumalli¸ PhD, is a Professor at the faculty of University of Delhi with over two decades of teaching experience and over seven years of working actively with grassroots organisations in the field of social action, disaster management, and development. She has published her work in national and international journals and has three books to her credit. She has successfully guided M.Phil. and Ph.D. research scholars. She is a firm believer in anti-oppressive social work practice.
Paula McFadden, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Ulster University and teaches at undergraduate, postgraduate, master's, and PhD levels. Paula’s main research interests are centred on workforce wellbeing, resilience, and burnout. Paula has conducted several UK-wide research studies, examining burnout in social workers, workforce ageing in social work, and more recently, wellbeing and coping during COVID-19, for health and social care professions, including social workers.
Tuomas Leppiaho, B.Soc.Sc., is a research assistant and a master's student in political sciences at the University of Lapland.
