No abstract

No abstract

In this article, we present the results of a strategy to disseminate best social work practices during periods of social lockdown in Spain, in a climate characterised by post-truth, misinformation and fake news. Social work is challenged with the task of delivering reliable and quality information aimed at building a better society. At the time of writing, Spain was one of the countries most affected by COVID-19, with one of the highest numbers of deaths per million inhabitants in the world. With the population in lockdown, our strategy was to design a series of innovative web seminars on both the subject and the procedures involved in social work, with the aim of sharing information and best practices to counter disinformation campaigns on social media. The results show the growing demand – both by citizens in general and students and professionals in particular – for reliable information in the field of professional practice. One of the priorities of digital social work must be to disseminate its results in the digital environment.

This paper addresses a key issue in the development of youth-focused social work: the role of digital skills in the relationship between young people and social workers who work with these native digital users. To this end, we analysed data from the International Digital Economy and Society Index 2019 and Eurostat. Information from the sixth European Working Conditions Survey and a survey conducted by the Social Care Institute for Excellence and the British Association of Social Workers supported the empirical analysis. The main findings reveal a gap between the level of digital skills required in the labour market and the actual level of digital skills in both young people and social workers, despite efforts by both groups to improve their skills. Initiatives to foster digital skills are therefore recommended to bridge this digital divide. Lastly, it was concluded that both groups could act as mutual drivers of digital transformation.

Research on youth transitions, and the well-being of young people, has to take into consideration the digital context in which they are immersed. Digital interaction of young people increase year by year, social networking sites play a key role in their personal and professional relationships, and a very high percentage of jobs require digital skills. According to Eurostat (2019), participating on social networking sites (one of the most common online activities in the EU-28), is growing every year [more than half (56%) of individuals aged 16-74 used the internet for social networking sites], and this percentage increases among the younger generations. In this article, we present the results of our research on the digital skills and well-being of young people on Facebook, based on a survey with a sample of 126 young people graduated from the University of Málaga (School of Social Work) (Spain). Based on certain scales, the level of digital skills that students have on Facebook was measured, considering strategic aspects for information search, level of use and presence of Facebook in life, maintenance of relations and tolerance to diversity. Variables of psychosocial well-being were also measured (social capital, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and personal wellbeing). Variables of digital skills on Facebook were subsequently related to well-being variables. Results show that certain digital skills relate to the well-being of young people. In this sense, we deem it crucial to develop education policies that could provide young graduates with general digital skills to be used on social networking sites.