The more you know, the less you fear: Reflexive social work practices in times of COVID-19

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.

Social Work Practices in the Multiethnic Urban Reality of Covid-19 in the Middle East: The Case of UAE

“…The situation was aggravated by numerous fake information and conspiracy theories, which flooded social networks. It is no secret that even some opinion leaders, including heads of state, often disseminated false information, misleading citizens and forcing scientists and doctors to refute it, which is consistent with the findings of López Peláez et al (2020) and Yum (2020). Due to the lack of information about the virus and experience in working in a pandemic and lockdown, social workers, especially in the first months, found themselves in an information vacuum, and national governments did not always have time to issue and promptly update instructions that meet the requirements of work in a rapidly changing environment, as Dauti et al (2020) and Redondo-Sama et al (2020) also concluded.…”

“…Social workers faced a new pandemic-related challenge: the huge number of rumors and conflicting information made the population feel insecure, fearful, and sad. In some groups, this enhanced the drive for control, while in others, it led to an underestimation of the risk of infection, suggesting that alternative explanations for the virus and its lethality are correct (López Peláez et al, 2020). In this regard, social networks played a crucial role, through which opinion leaders and ordinary citizens spread both truthful and fake information about the coronavirus and its origin, including various conspiracy theories (Yum, 2020).…”

“…Digital social work as a means to cope with these new challenges of misleading information provided an opportunity to enhance the role of social workers facing social emergencies and pandemic situations in today's digital society. One priority of digital social work must be to disseminate its results in this digital environment to be more effective (López Peláez & Marcuello-Servós, 2018;López Peláez et al, 2020).…”

Australian and New Zealand social workers adjusting to the COVID-19 pandemic

“…For example, Dominelli (2020) in a UK context and Gergerich et al (2020) in a US context note that many workers are working remotely during the pandemic and that this is impacting service delivery. Researchers across a range of countries including the UK ( Cook and Zschomler, 2020 ; Dominelli, 2020 ), Canada ( Archer-Kuhn et al , 2020 ), Malaysia ( Azman et al , 2020 ), Netherlands ( De Jonge et al , 2020 ), Vietnam ( Dinh and Nguyen, 2020 ), Spain ( López Peláez et al, 2020 ), Poland ( Necel and Zaręba, 2020 ), Greece ( Papouli et al , 2020 ), Lebanon ( Badran, 2020 ), Italy ( Fargion et al , 2020 ) and China ( Yuan et al , 2020 ) note also that workers are using remote technologies to work with clients.…”

Unaccompanied Minors in Greece and Italy: An Exploration of the Challenges for Social Work within Tighter Immigration and Resource Constraints in Pandemic Times

“…Indeed, social workers are reporting psychological difficulties among UAMs in accepting the restrictive pandemic measures. The reported "Libyan Syndrome" suggests that existing mistrust in immigration and welfare services is now particularly pronounced as UAMs struggle to reconcile previous traumatic experiences of a curtailment of freedom and autonomy within this new pandemic context (López Peláez et al 2020). Similar previous traumas were reported by social workers in Greece, where UAMs deny the reality of the pandemic.…”