ABSTRACT
The digitalisation process in which Spanish society has been immersed over the past few years has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown situation. This has affected social services in two ways. First, it has shown that user needs can be dealt with effectively through digital interventions. Second, it has highlighted the fact that the digital represents an environment in its own right in which both social inclusion and social exclusion processes can be generated. This chapter presents some of the main results of the digital transformation process in Spain from the perspective of social welfare and social inclusion. In particular, it focuses on the consolidation of digital social work and the digital transformation of social services. The chapter concludes by presenting best practices for designing digital social intervention strategies aimed at reducing inequality and increasing social welfare in digital societies. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Antonio López Peláez, Sang-Mok Suh and Sergei Zelenev;individual chapters, the contributors.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has sped up the pace of the digital transition process in which we have been immersed. In a context of generalized lock-down, our organizations have been forced to go digital and many of the activities social workers perform must now be done remotely. As a result, e-social work, or digital social work, has gone from being an emerging specialization to a critical specialty across organizations and activities. In this article, we examine some basic scientific and methodological foundations to develop a science of social work from the perspective of critical realism, with special attention to digitalization. Establishing the scientific foundations of digital social work is a preliminary step for its development as a field of specialization. © 2021, Western Michigan University. All rights reserved.