The effects of COVID-19 have impacted many aspects of our lives and professions. Many students in the survey noted how COVID-19 is changing the current profession of social work and will change the social work profession in the future.
PRESENT
In this section we asked students about different factors in their lives that were strengths, challenges, both, or neither. We saw that three of the factors have implications for social workers including: access to high speed internet, mental health, and ‘essential employee’ status. All of these factors currently or in the future could impact an individual’s experience in social work or the profession of social work.
Access to High Speed Internet: In our current state of living the pandemic has forced many professions to work from home based on physical distancing guidelines from our places of work and the government. This has meant that there have been many changes in how social workers work with clients and work in their jobs, having internet at home is sometimes vital to be able to do our jobs. 62% of our respondents felt that it was a strength while 11% felt it was a challenge.
Mental health: Currently there are a lot of people who are in mental health crisis because of the pandemic. Not only is this in the present but there will be many effects on people’s mental health after the pandemic. A person’s mental health can deeply impact social work through the way they are showing up and being present with clients or being able to focus on completing a task. 48% of students said mental health was a strength and challenge. 11% of students said mental health was a strength. Lastly, 38% of students said mental health was a challenge.
“Essential employee” Status: This status deems people as necessary to physically go into their jobs and effects certain social workers. Given the current state there is a possibility that this could change the profession to being more remote if necessary or more social work positions being deemed as ‘essential”. We found that 8.5% of students found being an “essential employee” as a strength. On the other hand, we found that 10.6% of students saw “essential employee” as a challenge. 19% students found that ‘essential employees’ status as a strength and challenge. Lastly, 27.6% felt that being an essential work was not a challenge or a strength.
FUTURE
In this section we asked students questions about how COVID-19 would affect their future. Specifically trying to understand how it would affect their work, the social work profession, coping strategies, and how it changed their relationship with institutions.
We asked students ‘How do you foresee the pandemic contributing to your work in the future?’ there were four main themes we found:
1) 27% of students reported increased need/demand for social workers.
“There will be an increased demand for social workers”
“I foresee a great need for Social Workers post pandemic.”
2) 32% of students reported anxiety around the job market.
“I feel hopelessly. Like many people graduating won’t be able to find work once we leave Silberman”
“I don’t know when I’ll be able to get a job as a macro social worker.”
3) 43% of students reported negative and positive impacts on the social work profession.
“I think the pandemic may affect how communication is with clients and it will be a huge adjustment for those not knowledgeable with tech.”
“This pandemic has helped me build my leadership skills and i learned a lot about grassroots organizing.”
4) 11% of students reported that the pandemic has shown us inequalities and hope for change.
“I am hoping that there will be significant transformational change after all of this on all levels (systemic, institutional, interpersonal) and that my work as a social worker can help facilitate that change”
“I do see it as being an opportunity to engage more people with political advocacy and elevate collective consciousness on systems of oppression.”
Next we asked students ‘How does this impact your outlook for the future of the social work profession and our communities?’ which came out in three similar themes to the question above.
1) 19% students reported on Systems being exposed through the pandemic and change.
“I feel like this pandemic is exposing a lot of class, race, and sex disparities and I hope it propels policy and practice change”
“The pandemic has only highlighted every system that has been broken for a long time and it’s time for structural change to occur.”
2) 34% of students responded around the theme of: Pandemic has created new opportunity for change in the social work profession.
“This pandemic has provided the opportunity to expose the necessity of social workers in providing social-emotional support”
“I think we will need social workers more than ever.”
3) 25% of students mentioned the negative effects the pandemic has on the social work profession.
“Older social workers are gonna start phasing out sooner than expected”
“I am less motivated to be a social worker right now”, “we are simultaneously devalued and essential.”
We also wanted to understand what had changed in students practices so we asked students ‘How has your social work practice (e.g. your organizing priorities, clinical practice, organizational management practice) changed based on the pandemic and different institutions (i.e. healthcare, education, federal government, state government, WHO) responses?’ From this question there were two main themes in the implications of the pandemic on social work we saw emerge.
1) Pandemic has shown brokenness of systems: 12.7% of students referenced this in their responses.
“Have lost some faith in govt. organizations to meet the needs of the population”
“I am disappointed in political responses to the pandemic, and left a little disheartened by it all.”
2) The pandemic has emphasized a need for organizing, social workers, structural change, and more clinical training: 8.5% of students commented on this theme.
“We need to change the oppressive ways of education and government”
“And on the clinical side, to push further for clinical training to talk more openly about poverty, racism and capitalism”
“Past few weeks that labor organizing and cooperatively designed and led organizations are more important than ever.”
The last questions we asked students was ‘Do you foresee your relationship with the healthcare system and other institutions changing in the future based on what has happened?’ in order to try and understand if and how their relationship had changed with different institutions based on the pandemic.
- 42% of students responded “yes”
- 6.3% of students responded “no”
- 6.3% of students responded “I don’t know”
- 15% of students people didn’t say “yes or no”
- 23% of students didn’t respond
