The COVID-19 pandemic has shed fresh light on the ways that social media and digital technologies can be effectively harnessed to support relationship-based social work practice. However, it has also highlighted the complex risks, ethics and practical challenges that such technologies pose. This book helps practitioners and students navigate this complex terrain and explore and build upon its multiple opportunities. It uses real-life examples to examine how practitioners can assess the impact of new technologies on their professional conduct and use them in a way that enhance public confidence and relationship-based practice. The authors explore how digital technologies can support multiple areas of service including social work with children, families and adults, mental health social work, youth justice and working with online communities. They also consider regulatory questions and provide a roadmap for good practice.

This book will help students develop their understanding of how the internet is impacting on social work education and practice in 21st century. Essential reading for students interested in the influence of digital technology and social media, including the impact of digital divides, this book looks at how the value-base of social work can have a positive effect on service users and carers who engage with digital services.

This book was written to help social work educators make pedagogically sound, rational, practical, and ethical decisions about integrating technology into their social work programs and across the curriculum. It covers a range of essential topics, from understanding digital literacy skills to ethical implications for technology in social work practice; from technology in the traditional classroom to fully online teaching environments. Case studies, real-world examples, and technology tips are part of each chapter, and checklists show how technology is integrated with the Council on Social Work Education's EPAS competencies, the NASW's Code of Ethics, and other social work practice standards and guidelines. Appendices provide a wealth of practical materials.

Over the past few decades, relationships between social workers and the media have become increasingly challenging. Social workers feel aggrieved by media reporting of their profession and believe that journalists lack sufficient knowledge and experience of the social services to report matters adequately and sensitively, whilst some journalists have urged social workers to adopt a more proactive public relations strategy. This book, first published in 1991, analyses the causes and consequences of the negative portrayal of social work within the media and considers various ways in which this image might be improved. The authors consider a variety of developments during the 1990s designed to redress imbalances in media reporting and present a more accurate picture of social workers and the people with whom they work. This title remains very relevant in light of the high profile cases related to the social service that continue to feature in the British press, and will be of particular value to students and researchers with an interest in the relationship between the media and social policy.

Captures the unique moment in time created by the Covid-19 pandemic and uses this as a lens to explore contemporary issues for social work education and practice. The 2020 coronavirus pandemic provided an unprecedented moment of global crisis, which placed health and social care at the forefront of the national agenda. The lockdown, social distancing measures and rapid move to online working created multiple challenges and safeguarding concerns for social work education and practice, whilst the unparalleled death rate exacerbated pre-existing problems with communicating openly about death and bereavement. Many of these issues were already at the surface of social work practice and education and this book examines how the health crisis has exposed these, whilst acting as a potential catalyst for change. This book acts as a testament to the historical moment whilst providing a forum for drawing together discussion from contemporary educators, practitioners and users of social work services.

Should you respond to friend requests from service users? How can you be sure that your own online profile is secure? Do service users understand the global and permanent nature of social media posts? Mapped against UK regulatory bodies’ standards this book responds to new complex issues raised by social media. Joanne Westwood draws on evidence and contemporary examples from practice to contextualise developments in social media and outline how this has shaped social work practice in recent years. She unpicks the potential pitfalls and opportunities social media presents for individual practice, organisations and service users. After using the case study questions, quizzes and reflective activities you will be able to confidently apply your knowledge of the 4 key issues: · privacy · confidentiality · regulation · professional ethics and values

Aimed at both students and professionals, this book is packed with valuable insights relating to social media use as a social worker by providing the reader with clear hands-on information they confidently can put into practice. The book covers key areas such as working in organisations, service users, skills, professional values and ethics and knowledge. It also comes with an appendix of instructor notes to aid teaching.

There has been a recent growth in the use of social media tools in social work education. This edited text presents a series of chapters which discuss social media activities and how they can contribute to student learning, and social work practice. The contributors, all innovators in the use of social media, introduce the landscape and discuss how social media activities have begun to impact on both social work education and on practice. The professional codes of practice and the values and ethics questions such activities can raise are introduced and explored across the chapters. Packed with practical examples and exercises, this innovative textbooks is a useful tool for students, practitioners and academics new to using social media in their teaching.

Social work and child protection systems have for several decades been subject to cycles of crisis and reform, with each crisis drawing intense media and political scrutiny. In this book, Joanne Warner argues that to understand the nature of these cycles, we have to pay attention to the importance of collective emotions such as anger, shame, and fear. To do so, she introduces the concept of emotional politics. Using a range of cases from the United Kingdom, the United States, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, Warner reveals that collective emotions are central to constructions of risk and blame--and that they are generated and reflected by official documents, politicians, and the media. She also suggests strategies for challenging emotional politics, including identifying models for a more politically engaged stance for the social work profession.