Practice Adjustments during the Pandemic: Results from a Class Research Project

Background:

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for social workers in the U.S. has increased due to growing needs in child welfare (Machlin et al., 2022), mental health (Aknin et al., 2022), and other areas of practice (McKnight-Eily et al., 2021; Wilson, 2020). Like elsewhere, the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the need for social workers in North Carolina (NC; Banks, 2020; Kaniuka et al., 2021) where there is a severe shortage of school social workers (Childress, 2020) and there has been a 40% increase in reported symptoms of mental illness among adults since before the pandemic (Blythe & Thompson, 2022). There are ongoing social worker shortages in NC, especially in rural areas of the state (Kummerer, 2020).

Meanwhile, COVID-19 has taken a toll on social workers (Banks et al., 2020; Prasad et al., 2021), many of whom staff front lines of America’s medical and public health systems (Lerner & Pollack, 2022). Our profession must understand not only how to train social workers who are able to meet the emerging needs of our society but also how to retain them in human service organizations and the profession. Better understanding how social work practice has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic will help us to maintain and grow our profession within ever-changing practice contexts. The purposes of this study were: 1) understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the personal and professional lives of social workers practicing in NC; and 2) determine how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted social worker burnout and commitment.

Methods:

Between February and June of 2022, social workers practicing in NC were surveyed as a part of a student-engaged research project that spanned three social work research classes: two MSW classes and one BSW class. Students used a variety of methods to recruit participants including social media and connections at field placements. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlations, and multiple regression.

Results:

A total of 65 social work students recruited 120 participants. Compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, most participants indicated that they were experiencing somewhat more or a lot more workload (70.0%). Most respondents indicated that their practice had been adversely affected to a moderate or a large extent (71.7%). Adjustments to COVID-19 were predictive of work-related burnout (β = .19, p = .015; R² = 40.3%) and affective commitment (β = -.15, p = .044; R² = 43.8%), when controlling for other factors. Years of practice experience, racial identity, caregiver status, satisfaction with organizational environment, educational attainment, and urbanicity of practice location were also salient predictors across the regression models.

Conclusions & Implications:

NC social workers experienced major adjustments to their personal and professional lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to negative consequences including increased work-related burnout and less organizational commitment. Additional research – particularly qualitative – is needed to better understand the lived experiences of social workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also provides an example of how social work scholars can simultaneously engage students in research and conduct research in their substantive areas.