Social workers’ perceptions on clients’ service needs and social work practices during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Ever since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the specialized health-care resources have been the main focus of political attention in any country. However, the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have also had a major impact on social services. The pandemic increased service needs among those who were already adult social work clients before the pandemic; it also created needs among new groups of clients, while the operating environment for service provision changed dramatically.
 In our study, we examine social workers’ perceptions on: 1) how well social services were able to respond to clients’ needs during the pandemic; and 2) examine practices in adult social work that were used and developed during the outbreak of the pandemic. For the analysis, we use national survey data obtained from social workers in the Social Barometer survey collected in May 2020 (n=496) and in January 2021 (n=412). The findings show that according to social workers, during the first year of the pandemic social work in Finland succeeded in responding to clients’ rather clear and concrete problems, such as difficulties in applying for social benefits and a lack of housing, while more complicated problems, such as unmanageable debts, loneliness and mental health problems, were not adequately responded to. At the same time, social workers assessed that people suffering from these problems were the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Digitalization, stress, and social worker–client relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Will almost two years' worth of experience where digital meetings were the 'norm' have a long-term influence and long-term effects on both the view of the social worker-client relationship and how social work should be performed, or was it just a parenthesis before going back to "business as usual"? In line with previous research on the COVID-19 pandemic and social work (see also Mesiäislehto et al, 2021;Ross et al, 2021), the social workers in the web survey stated that digital communication makes the services more accessible for some target groups and clients, while for other target groups and clients, it's just the opposite. However, clients' experiences of how they benefit from or are hindered by the increased use of digital tools requires more research.…”

“…While some research concludes that social workers have been able to maintain a therapeutic relationship with clients (Mishna et al, 2020), others claim that the quality of client care has been reduced by the use of telehealth services (Wiener et al, 2021). Also, clients with complex problems—like mental health problems and loneliness—were the most negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic (Mesiäislehto et al, 2021; see also Ross et al, 2021). Also, there are few studies exploring how various factors (e.g., gender, age, work tasks, employment, and size of the municipality) may explain the impact on the social worker–client relationship, which is something that this article contributes.…”