Social work in digital transfer blending services for the next generation

Abstract

During the last two decades, the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has been fast. Smartphones and tablet computers have made the internet and the virtual dimension it offers, available and continuously present in our everyday lives. Drawing from the insights of four sub-studies considering the aspects of ICT use among (potential) clients within social services, the purpose of this dissertation is to explore what consequences, opportunities and risks are to be considered, if and when implementing ICT as a part of future social work practice. My ontological and epistemological starting points follow the ideas of pragmatism. In this dissertation, pragmatism is seen as a future and development-oriented epistemology, interested not only in what is, but also in what might be. This is a suitable starting point given the situation of contemporary social work where circumstances are changing, and the former knowledge and experiences which form best practice may no longer be applicable. As such, my approach is explorative. The research process spans almost one decade, and the four sub-studies presented in this dissertation include four sets of data, collected at different points in time between 2005 and 2014. This research contributes new information by offering an insight into the change in approaches to ICT that can be seen among (potential) social work clients. In brief, the sub-studies show that (young) people use ICT as a source of social support and empowering bonding, and also as an arena for participation. For youth at risk of marginalization, ICT offers a channel through which they can escape their everyday problems for a while, and view the lives of peers leading everyday lives which are different from their own. This dissertation introduces a framework called blended social work . This framework was developed in order to situate the sub-studies into the continuously developing intersection between social work and ICT. It may also function as a more general framework for exploring and making sense of social work in our time of digital transfer, which is characterized by our simultaneous presence in both online and offline dimensions. Blended social work is anchored in social work, using the global definition of social work as a point of reference. In addition, the results of these sub-studies are used as starting points for exploring how blended social work is realized through the concepts of social support, participation and empowering bonding. In the dissertation, blended social work is left open to further research and development, and it is suggested that future research should focus on determining the expectations and needs of the next generation.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 12 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.