Equipping Social Workers for a New Global Era

The pandemic impacted the global communities at the core of its socio-economic fabric and several of the social institutions fell apart for lack of coordinated and informed approach to social work and services. Heightened vulnerabilities and increasing inequalities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic pose serious challenges to the profession of social work. Beyond the current pandemic, the possibility of such economic, social, health, and environmental crises necessitates the need for developing newer tools in addressing inequalities and enhanced vulnerabilities for marginalised communities to uphold the avowed principles of social justice and promoting human agency by social work profession. The need for some generic foundational skills as well as specific social work skills is pronounced now than ever before. With the pervasiveness of digital work in a (post)-COVID era, social work profession too is witnessing integration of digitalisation of social work necessitating social workers to develop required skills to operate in such contexts. Adoption of a paradigm where socialising the digital rather than digitising the social is considered to be re-emphasising the value of human relationships in social work practice. The need for developing necessary skills through both class room teaching and field instruction is highlighted. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Implementing the Learning from the Mindfulness-based Social Work and Self-care Programme to Social Work Student Practice during COVID-19: A Qualitative Study

This is the first study which has explored how social work students have applied the learning from a bespoke Mindfulness-Based Social Work and Self-Care (MBSWSC) programme to their social work practice. A qualitative research design was chosen, and a realist ontological position taken. The qualitative data were collected from reflective journals from seven social work students on placement who had completed the MBSWSC programme. An inductive thematic and comparative analysis methodology was used to identify key themes. This study found that the MBSWSC programme supported students to cope with the stress and anxiety that manifested before and during their placement. Students highlighted how switching from an avoidant to an approach oriented coping strategy allowed them to alleviate any negative thoughts or feelings they were experiencing. Students identified that this allowed them to employ more positive responses when dealing with stress. Students outlined that the learning from the programme allowed them to develop increased self-awareness, empathy, reflection and reflexivity skills, all of which will likely enhance their capacity for anti-oppressive social work practice. It is clear that improved access to the MBSWSC programme will allow social work students to develop the skills necessary to practice sustainably over the longer term.