Social work is still suffering psychological fallout of Covid

Moral injury caused to social workers from having to go against their core values during Covid is one of the lasting legacies of the pandemic.

Moreover, the fallout continues to leave them vulnerable to burnout and psychological damage.

The warning comes from a review of research examining the continuing impact of Covid-19 on social work and how the profession has been shaped by the global catastrophe.

The University of Manchester looked at 97 articles written between December 2019 and May 2023 and found "abundant evidence… for psychological distress and the impact of Covid-19 on the working environment for social care and social workers".

The research, titled The impact of COVID-19 on social care and social work in the UK: A scoping review, and published in the British Journal of Social Work, states: “The pandemic left social workers and carers feeling helpless to assist the people they cared for in a way they felt was ethical and humane. 

“Feeling individually responsible... leads to negative internally directed emotions and ways of thinking such as guilt, shame or lack of self-forgiveness.”

The risk of moral injury was especially acute for social workers supporting families with elderly members in care homes, the review found.

“Workers were unsure as to whether to withhold distressing information from relatives (and) later research revealed the psychological impact on social workers who felt implicated in practices they regarded as unethical such as the discharge of Covid-positive hospital patients into care homes and the ensuing deaths of residents.

“Care homes and social work systems were poorly prepared for the pandemic and already struggling with existing challenges; a legacy of austerity measures."

A lack of clear guidance from government on procedures to follow during the pandemic left social workers feeling "overwhelmed" and struggling to balance work and home life as they coped with lockdown and working in isolation.

The researchers said: "For social workers, psychological distress emerged from the reduced opportunities to provide and receive face-to-face support and an increase in levels of complexity experienced on caseloads."

Predicting that demand on the profession and the statutory duties of social work are likely to "become even more intense” as we “learn to live with Covid”, researchers said the pandemic "magnified a chronic lack of funding, staffing, support and regard for adult social care, with no future planning compared to the NHS".

They warn against focusing purely on psychological distress in social work in terms of absenteeism and burnout, which "creates a one sided and negative perspective", arguing for more "research on risk and resilience factors".

In addition, further work on moral injury in social work and social care is needed, to separate the concept from its existing use in the armed forces.

More research on supporting managers, teaching and learning environments, and policy research on social work and social care planning is also recommended.

The study said there was likely to be a “tsunami of need” post-Covid, concluding: “The pandemic is not over. We have simply moved into a phase of learning to live with Covid, which has had and continues to have, a disproportionate impact on some populations and is amplified by inequalities in socio-economic status. 

“If anything, social care needs and the statutory duties of social work are likely to become even more intense in the years that follow.”