Social Work Practice in Pandemic Contexts
Summary
The emergence of a global pandemic has imposed rapid and profound shifts on social work practice, compelling practitioners to navigate unprecedented restrictions, heightened vulnerability among service users and accelerated digitisation of care. Social workers have expanded roles in public health response, crisis intervention and community resilience building, while balancing ethical commitments to autonomy, confidentiality and equity. Service models have diversified to incorporate remote casework, telehealth and hybrid outreach, with practitioners improvising to maintain relational engagement under social-distancing measures. Moral distress and burnout have intensified as frontline professionals juggle resource scarcity, evolving policy directives and complex risk assessments. Simultaneously, interdisciplinary collaborations with health, education and legal sectors have strengthened, revealing both challenges and opportunities for integrated service delivery. This body of work underscores the need to capture lessons on adaptive governance, workforce wellbeing and enduring innovations to inform preparedness for future health emergencies.
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Social Work Practice in Pandemic Contexts publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in social work practice in pandemic contexts across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Moral distress: Psychological tension experienced when practitioners are constrained from acting on ethical judgments due to external pressures.
Digital casework: The use of online platforms and communication technologies to assess needs, deliver interventions and maintain professional relationships remotely.
Telehealth: The provision of health or social care services through electronic communication, including video-conferencing and telephonic support.
Contingency: The recognition of unpredictable, situational factors requiring practitioners to make real-time decisions under uncertainty.
Improvisation: Creative adaptation of standard practices and protocols in response to emergent challenges and resource constraints.
References
- The impact of COVID-19 on palliative care social work: An online survey by a European Association of Palliative Care Task Force. Palliative Medicine (2023).
- Practising ethically during COVID-19: Social work challenges and responses. International Social Work (2020).
- Social work and child protection for a post-pandemic world: the re-making of practice during COVID-19 and its renewal beyond it. Journal of Social Work Practice (2021).
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