The 'new social work skills' heralded at conference for students and NQSWs
Published by Professional Social Work magazine, 16 November 2022
The pandemic has resulted in ‘new social work skills’ including being able to function in an online world, BASW’s annual student and NQSW conference heard.
Other positives discussed at the event included greater work flexibility, creativity and autonomy. Among the negatives were the loss of opportunities to informally learn from colleagues.
Speaking at the conference Paula Beesley, a senior lecturer in social work at Leeds Beckett University, said: “There is talk about the new social work skills and a recognition that online communication is the new normal.
“We are all learning new social work skills and that is enabling us to reach service users in new and creative ways.”
Beesley said a greater focus on online learning means social work training is able to be more responsive and flexible to the needs of students.
“We are able to provide support in the way students need and have become much more student-centred through online education.”
Lectures are increasingly recorded and students are even recording supervision sessions, the conference heard.
Greater flexibility was also being felt in the workplace.
Pam Shodeinde, who qualified as a social worker in 2019, said: “In hindsight it was quite oppressive when you had to be in the office when you didn’t need to be there. Now people can manage their diaries in ways that meet their needs.
“My husband and I have not paid for as much childcare as we would prior to Covid. It’s [about] allowing choices rather than imposing people to come into the office when they don’t need to.”
Patriche Bentick, a team manager in Camden, added: “We are more mindful of what is the best use of time. For students, how is this going to benefit them? For managers, as much as they like people to be present, is this a good use of time, what are we trying to achieve?
“There is more thought about how what we are doing is going to benefit the children and adults and families we are supposed to be supporting.”
Creativity and confidence
The pandemic also increased creativity, said Patriche.
“People who wouldn’t describe themselves as creative are so much more dynamic now, more reflective, able to adapt and be flexible.
“It is a beautiful thing to see: the way we think about solving problems, about risk assessing from a different perspective.”
Jenni McCabe, principal practice tutor with the Frontline social work training scheme, said:
“Our students have enabled us to think differently. I wonder if [during the pandemic] there was opportunity to connect with families to offer space for curiosity and cultural humility, for their shared perspective: looking at practice through a more trauma informed lens because of their own experience.”
Marcia Cameron, safeguarding manager at NSPCC, believes working from home in the pandemic forced frontline practitioners to become more confident in their decision-making.
“They had more opportunity to use their professionalism and make their own decisions without going to a manager. As a qualified social worker you can make decisions. In the past people didn’t always feel confident in that and would go to their manager rather than using their professional judgement.”
Challenges
Lynn Williams, an independent practice educator, said: “The start of the pandemic was difficult for both students and for me. I was used to working with people online but I was concerned for the students and the lack of support they were getting.
“They did not have the informal learning you get from watching a colleague who has just had a bad visit or bad phone call. You can learn a lot from watching and listening.”
Jenni added: “I had a duty of care to students and NQSWs who were experiencing loss on a personal level as well and having to contend with everything that was required of them as a student, especially for those who had caring responsibilities.”
Pam found hurdles online as a newly qualified social worker: “We had lockdown in March 2020 and were expected to go on home visits and not going back to the office. If something happens, who is available to get help and support from?”
Social media became the norm for teams to stay connected during the pandemic. But for students on placements, this presented additional challenges, said Lynn.
“Teams were often setting up daily meetings on WhatsApp or other groups. The regular team members knew each other so could work in that way. But for some students it wasn’t so easy to talk to people in a WhatsApp group when you don’t know them.”
Lynn said increasing supervision from fortnightly to weekly was helpful to students during the pandemic.
Post-pandemic learnings include being mindful of trauma and taking care that the flexibility shown doesn’t lead to unmanageable workloads, warned Jenni
“There’s this sense that we have got through this, we are all resilient, that we can’t take on everything just because we managed to get through this. We need space to breathe, reconnect and regroup to whatever the new normal is.”