Connection and hope in a post-pandemic world?

Abstract

Since the last issue, the discovery of a new and highly contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19 has led to renewed concern and frustrated hopes of a return to ‘ordinary’ (or pre-pandemic) life. Indeed, debates are increasingly focusing upon whether a return to a pre-pandemic world is possible and whether COVID will enter into a new phase as an endemic illness that we learn to live with, like flu. The enduring issue is how we manage hope in the vicissitudes of a pandemic that has created, for many people, a sense of pervasive anxiety in the face of ongoing uncertainty. Our first article of 2022 invites us to think beyond the present Covid-19 situation and into the possibilities of social work renewal in a post-pandemic world. In their article titled ‘Social work and child protection for a post-pandemic world: the remaking of practice during COVID-19 and its renewal beyond it’, the three authors, Harry Ferguson, Laura Kelly and Sarah Pink, present findings from a longitudinal study of social workers, managers and family support workers based across four local authority areas in England. Their study findings reveal many dimensions of practice, including the changes that have occurred as a result of Covid-19 restrictions, social distancing in particular. Their study illustrates examples of the increased bureaucratisation of practice in child protection services and it shines a light on how the Covid-19 crisis, which they refer to as ‘a moment of dramatic disruption’, has amplified the challenges social workers encounter in trying to fulfil regulatory and administrative requirements whilst simultaneously ensuring sufficient direct contact with service users. The study shines a light on the creativity, skills and determination of practitioners and managers to persevere with their work despite the challenges which exist within the current pandemic context. The second article in this issue, ‘Sharing Lived Experiences Framework (SLEF): a framework for mental health practitioners when making disclosure decisions’ by Brendan J. Dunlop, Bethany Woods, Jonny Lovell, Alison O’Connell, Sally RawcliffeFoo and Kerry Hinsby, addresses the issue of self-disclosure by practitioners. The SLEF framework, which the authors set out in this article, highlights the role that supervision and reflective practice can play in helping individual practitioners to make decisions about when and to what extent self-disclosure is useful or appropriate in their work. The framework is designed to assist practitioners in their decision-making about self-disclosure, and it details a range of factors that surround such decisions. Tom Casey’s article details a practice model which aims to interpret and work with the relational dynamics that can occur within the relationships that surround children in care. The article, titled ‘The evolving use of Mentalization informed thinking with the “Care Team” in the Irish statutory child protection system’, examines the usefulness of JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE 2022, VOL. 36, NO. 1, 1–3 https://doi.org/10.1080/02650533.2022.2033010