by Professor Antonio López Peláez, Executive Director of ICSW and Professor of Social Work and Social Services at the National Distance Education University (UNED) (Spain)
ICSW Global Newsletter - January 2024.
We are at a real crossroads in the fields of social policy, social welfare, and social work (López, Suh and Zelenev, 2023). There is no single possible answer, locally or globally, to the challenges we collectively face. We can learn from each other by sharing good practices. We can highlight two priorities for redefining social policies in our troubled times.
The first is the importance of citizen participation in the design and evaluation of social policies (and the need for training in competencies and skills related to participation). And the second, the importance of configuring a digitalization model based on human rights. Both priorities feedback on each other. Without participation there is no inclusive digitalization, and the digitalization model we are implementing in social services is going to have lasting consequences. As the digitalization model is not neutral, it is important to highlight in these conclusions some key points to address at the crossroads where we now stand.
One of our concerns hast to be the protection of citizens' rights, which are increasingly being decided in the digital environment. Our institutions are going digital, more and more services and benefits have a digital gateway. Therefore, the digital skills of social workers and citizens are essential. The digital divide is not only about access. It is also a gap of use, of skills, of trajectories. How do we develop new forms of interviewing, home visiting, diagnosis, and intervention, based on new technologies and the Internet? How do we turn digitalization into an opportunity to improve social services?
Digital rights, digital intervention, and digital competencies need to be part of the curricula in universities. We must train ourselves to intervene in an environment that has its own characteristics. We are not going to forget about face-to-face work, but it is true that digitalization of our society requires specific training in digital skills. In a context of populism, radicalization, fake news and questioning of the figure of the scientist and the expert, it is necessary to point out the importance of the right to rigorous information, to a professional evaluation, based on expert knowledge and science, including social sciences and social work.
It is true that in the very structure of digital social networks there is a tendency to partisanship, conflict, and blocking, generating a very important noise (Davies, 2019). But it is also true that, in times of pandemic, science and expert knowledge are what can save us from destruction and death. Science saves us. And social work, as a science, also helps us to build a society where citizen’ rights are protected in all areas, and of course in the digital sphere.
Digital Social Work, or e-social work, in a technological society in which social services are undergoing a process of accelerated digitization, emerges as an increasingly necessary specialization (López Peláez and Kirwan, 2023). We can define it as the use of new information and communication technologies in the field of care and support for people in situation (including on-line research, treatment of patients/users, counseling and evaluation, training and capacity building of social workers, and monitoring of social programs and services).
Helping and caring for people at risk of social exclusion and supporting people who are in a situation of fragility or face problems that overwhelm them, cannot leave aside the digital dimension of our lives. However, we cannot be naïve: this digitization process must be guided by a democratic, person-centered approach. It must pursue greater social inclusion. We must codesign it together so that it is for everyone.
In this sense, some strategies must be considered in the design of post-pandemic social services:
- The first is to include all stakeholders in the definition of social policies, both in their design and in their development and evaluation.
- Strengthen the competencies and skills of social welfare professionals in the field of participation.
- Raise the visibility of groups at risk of social exclusion, including those groups affected by digitalization processes.
- To implement an inclusive digitization system, based on the digital rights of citizens, which allows better attention to citizens.
- Promote, in the training of social workers, digital competencies and competencies in participation, including participatory evaluation.
The crossroads at which we find ourselves requires us to redefine social protection systems from a perspective focused on participation and digitalization. Digitalization is a decisive challenge that we have to face right now. Our future will depend on the digitization model we put in place. That is important. Our well-being, our citizenship and our freedom depend on it.
References:
López Peláez, A. Kirwan, G. (eds). (2023). The Routledge International Handbook of Digital Social Work. London: Routledge.
López Peláez, A., Suh, S.M., Zelenev, S. (eds). 2023. Digital Transformation and Social Well-Being. Promoting an Inclusive Society. London: Routledge.
