Social workers' duty is to help children, who come from tough circumstances. However, Covid-19 has created a situation that is not only hard for children, but also for social workers and the new guidance by the government doesn't help them either.
The Children's Commissioner's Office in the UK was working hard to make some areas clear for them by meeting social workers and discussing a few changes with them and the influence it will have on children. The Government's advice for local authorities was to prioritise and support children, who are in need or at the greatest risk. Fewer visits is also recommended also for social workers to stay healthy. However, the interventions seemed not to be effective. The prioritisation may lead to that the most obvious harms such as physical abuse will be the only case when they use interventions.
Because children can't see the professionals or teachers, child protection interventions in some places are under 50%. These kids, who are out of attention can be the most vulnerable. Only 13% of children who were harmed or died last year were on a child protection plan. The rest got some other kind of support or were unknown.
Challenges, social workers face during Covid-19:
- to meet their responsibility is to check the children, if they are ok or not in order to keep a safety net around them
- they usually play with the kid, to build trust and it is now harder
- they also lost the ability to observe the child, but they can ask for virtual tours in their homes
- it is difficult to e confident about the fact that you are speaking to the child alone.
- Meaningful conversations with parents via video calls is also a challenge due to the lack of body language
- Moreover, technological challenges are also barriers - in some households, there are no devices
The solution can be to make a plan about which part of the house, which child and where he/she must be seen. There are also online games like quizzes.
Great thing is that some social workers reported about the benefits, this situation has: online visits can be more convenient for some families and teenagers also like it better.
We should always keep in mind that life will be restarted after Covid-19, so in the future, we can build upon these experience we make in these difficult times.
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