Post-Covid-19 sotsiaaltöö: millised praktiseerimise viisid on jäänud?

Abstract

The aim this bachelor thesis is to explore, through the experiences of social workers, how the ways of practising social work changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and which of these changes are still in use today. The paper outlines the changes that occurred as a result of the pandemic and the ways of practising that are still in use today, as described by the people interviewed. In order to achieve this aim, following 2 research questions were set: 1. What new ways of practice did social workers start using during the pandemic? 2. Which of these new ways of practising are still in use today? The current bachelor tehsis has been conducted using a qualitative research method. The method of data collection is semi-structured interviews and the method of analysis is qualitative content analysis. In the course of the research, I conducted four interviews with social workers working in the local government. All four interviews were individual interviews. My thesis consists of 3 chapters dividend into seperate subchapters. The first chapter describes how the pandemic changed social work, the impact on social workers and clients and the digital solutions that were used as a result of the pandemic. Chapter two describes the methodology, where I describe how I collected data for the bachelor thesis, the methods I used to analyse the data and the research process and my reflection. Chapter three consists of an analysis of the interviews and a discussion. The main findings from this bachelor thesis are that some changes made due to the pandemic have still remained til now. During the pandemic, meetings with clients were replaced by telephone counselling. This has now been maintained but the volume of telephone counselling has decreased compared to the pandemic. During the pandemic online meetings and the possibility to work from home were also used. Nowadays this has also been maintained. Direct contact with people is an indispensable part of social work. Client meetings have recovered since the pandemic but, for example, documentary work or simpler counselling is done through technology nowadays. People got used to the convenience of doing services online, as they had done during the pandemic. There were also some people who were very happy to be able to meet their practitioner face-to-face again. It turns out that people prefer to interact with social workers online because that way it is easier to lie. This is also one of the reasons why social workers prefer to meet with people face-to-face. Everyone has different preferences when it comes to accessing services. Social workers pointed out that people with anxiety disorders, for example, are more likely to prefer to receive services online because they are in the safety of their own home. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic taught social workers the importance of hygiene. After the pandemic, some of the social workers I interviewed, will continue to use personal protective equipment because, as one social worker said, other diseases don't go away once the pandemic is over. People still need to protect themselves from other illnesses other than COVID-19.