Harnessing Technology for Social Good: A Grand Challenge for Social Work

Innovative applications of new digital technologies present opportunities for social and human services to reach more people with greater impact and find answers to our most vexing social problems. These new technologies can be deployed to more strategically target social spending, speed up the development of effective programs, and bring a wider array of help to more individuals and communities. However, despite the technological progress, the social sector has been slow to incorporate a continuous flow of data analytics to inform policy and practice. Moreover, while the possibility for practice innovation using digital technologies has been documented, social work practitioners and scholars remain hesitant in driving this movement and embracing it fully. 

This roundtable session brings together the authors of two concept papers that outline the prospects and challenges that face the profession in incorporating these new technologies into practice, administration, policy development and research. The first group of presenters will focus on the potential of big data and data science to produce novel types of information to inform the field. They will offer recent examples of these applications and describe how the practical, ethical, methodological and technical challenges are being tackled . The second group of presenters will discuss the incorporation of technology into social work practice, including personalization of services, online assessment and intervention, real time tracking, the uses of wearable devices, robotics, games and so forth. They will provide current examples and discuss strategies for increasing the adoption of these technologies.

Finally, round table participants and the audience will join in a discussion of how the field can move toward taking greater advantage of these technologies and assuring that they have a positive impact on the individuals and communities it serves. The group will discuss specific strategies related to social work education, research, practice and policy, and how individuals and organizations can contribute to the goal of harnessing technology for social good.