Social Work Pride

Social Work Pride April 2020

Who could have predicted that National Social Work Month, March 2020 would coincide with the changing of our communities and the world as we knew it with the emergence of this Covid-19 pandemic?

As a profession, we have historically witnessed how crisis situations have presented opportunities to rebuild better, more inclusive, and more stable societies. Our responsibility as social workers are to bring attention to the long-term social solutions, and this crisis is no exception.

The social work community has played a large role in advocating that social services remain open with adaptations to new situational conditions.

For example, social workers have been on the frontline for:

• Developing targeted plans to support homeless people and other vulnerable groups
• Expanding tele-mental health access to therapists trained in trauma and grief interventions
• Setting up of telephone hotlines to provide family counselling and direct safety when domestic violence is occurring.
• Implementation of grass root efforts to initiate community accessibility to food when to combat food insecurity and lack of access
• …and so much more

Many of us are physically disconnected to our most vulnerable clients. Personally, the inability to visit and provide emotional support and advocacy to my aging clients in residential care settings has been agonizing. Knowing that they are unable to be visited by family members and loved ones is such an inexplicable reality. I am now helping family members grieve untimely deaths and the guilt of not having said goodbye, with the added insult of not being able to access timely cultural rituals of mourning and burial.

While many of us are socially isolating in place for the good of the whole, special recognition goes to those dedicated essential social work professionals who are working in healthcare, residential settings and in the communities, risking their health and the health of their families, to ensure continued social work intervention, support and interdisciplinary collaboration.

• Social workers at every level have the skills and capability to not only address safety for today but to translate fear, grief and loss into empowerment and social transformation.
• We believe in the power of resiliency and the ability to change. The foundation of the interventions we implement now, will resonate for generations to come.
Stay Strong, Stay Healthy, Stay Resilient