Digital Social Work and Caring
First of all, I want to express my gratitude to Jeff and Jerry for creating this online space for debate and reflection in a digital society.
Thinking about the nine modes of caring, in Social Work, some basic questions arise: (i) how do I define the other, the user?; (ii) how do I describe and articulate the relationship between user and client and?; (iii) what are the goals in terms of caring, lifestyle, opportunities and environment? In order to propose a model of caring relationship with the user that allows for the improvement of their living conditions and access to knowledge that takes into consideration all the dimensions at stake and the different interpretations of each actor involved, Ortega y Gasset's theory —the perspectivism, the vital reason and the theory of technique— can be useful.
It is important to realize two main characteristics of our current social realities: first, we are immersed in a climate characterized by post-truth, misinformation and fake news, and a shared/universal definition of care is at stake. Second, we live in a digital society, and COVID-19 has reinforced the digitalization of our communities, our lives and our jobs. Digital skills have became a critical issue in our lives (López Peláez, Erro-Garcés and Gómez-Ciriano, 2020).
Within the cultural battle in which we are always immersed, the science and technology model of social work is linked to social inclusion and caring, with a certain definition of the goods at stake, in a specific technological environment. Here, the Orteguian perspective (López Peláez and Marcuello Servós, 2019) contributes to re-dimensioning our discipline according to the model of life and values, from which we articulate our caring, our science, our technology, and our professional intervention.
Youth: The Role of Digital Skills
Lopez Pelaez, et. al. (2020)
In this sense, the digitalization of our lives opens a new field to Social Work as a scientific discipline and as a profession, which we have defined as digital Social Work or "e-Social Work" (López Peláez and Marcuello Servós, 2018). Online sociability, digital interactions, form a new field of research and intervention (López Peláez et a., 2018). In the methodological field, for example, it allows us to investigate the natural environment without the interference generated by the observer in traditional ethnography and, therefore, it overcomes one of the limitations of our usual methodology in the pre-Internet world. The same applies to longitudinal studies: it is now possible to monitor online interactions and study them over time. In the area of user-professional relations, the online environment forces us to redefine them, taking into account the digital rights of users and redefining what we consider to be privacy. In the area of relations with institutions, which have been transformed into electronic administrations with increasing intensity, interactions with users are also changing.
To configure a science of Social Work is to risk thinking and to get out of the limits instituted in the last century. We are always faced with the challenge of continuing to make a better society where people are the centre of our work, something that is at the same time practical but undeniably theoretical.
From my point of view, knowledge gives freedom and the first freedom it gives us is the ability to turn to the sciences, to the science of Social Work, and analyze it as a human activity that produces results and allows us to change our destiny, as caring human beings (López Peláez et al. 2020).
References:
López Peláez, A., Marcuello Servós, Ch., Castillo de Mesa, J., Almaguer-Calixto, P. 2020. The more you know, the less you fear. Reflexive social work practices in times of COVID-19. International Social Work (in press). DOI: 10.1177/0020872820959365
López Peláez, A., Erro-Garcés, A., Gómez-Ciriano, E.J. 2020. Young people, social workers and social work education: the role of digital skills. Social Work Education. The International Journal 39 (6) 825-843. DOI: 10.1080/02615479.2020.1795110
López Peláez, A., Marcuello-Servós, C. 2018. e-Social work and digital society: re-conceptualizing approaches, practices and technologies. European Journal of Social Work 21:6, 801-803, DOI: 10.1080/13691457.2018.1520475
López Peláez, A., Pérez García, R, Aguilar-Tablada Massó, M. V. 2018. e-Social work: building a new field of specialization in social work? European Journal of Social Work 21:6, 804-823, DOI: 10.1080/13691457.2017.1399256
López Peláez, A., Marcuello Servós, Ch. 2019. Teoría y ciencia del Trabajo Social en el siglo XXI: fundamentos científicos y metodológicos. Pp. 9-32. En: Brekke, J., Anastas, J. (eds.), La ciencia del Trabajo Social. Conocimiento profesional e identidad. Madrid: Universitas.