Developing coping and self-care strategies has always been important for social work students as they prepare for work that can take a psychological, emotional, mental, and physical toll and adversely impact their health and well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in its impact on social work education as it forced students to quickly transition to online learning and leave field sites abruptly to do remote activities. The degree to which and how social work students effectively coped with these changes has not been adequately studied, despite recognition that understanding how personal experiences and affective reactions influence professional judgment and behavior is a critical social work competency. To help fill this void, a mixed-methods study was conducted using video narratives and survey data to assess the coping and self-regulation skills of a cohort of undergraduate social work students. Findings indicate that these students experienced multiple stressors in all aspects of their biopsychosocial functioning due to COVID-19. Many coping skills learned for use with clients were demonstrated by students themselves. Self-sufficient, avoidant, and socially-supported coping mechanisms were frequently used and relied on by students. Use of self-distraction and active coping increased, while denial decreased within the first month after transitioning to remote learning. Implications of the findings for social work education, practice, and research are discussed.

Telehealth and social media raise ethical issues for social workers, prompting the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) to revise ethical standards in recent years to address use of technology. Social workers are directed to avoid searching client information electronically but may do so with clients’ informed consent. Professional technology standards and directives from NASW indicate that the information gathered on the Internet about clients is distinct from that obtained from clients directly. While internet searching of clients is widely used in business and other professions, its value in social work has been largely unrecognized. This article lends support for viewing internet information on clients as critical data that should be routinely gathered by social workers in many instances, justifying its importance in light of the ecological perspective which is the foundation of social work practice. Gathering internet information on clients is valuable to understanding people in their environments, as much of daily life now takes place in the digital world. Recommendations assist social workers to responsibly engage in internet searching of client information so that it can be incorporated into social work’s standard of care. Keywords: Ethics, ecological perspective, technology, social media