An Open Letter to Social Work Students in the Time of COVID-19

Doors to future

by Laura Burney Nissen, PhD, LMSW, CADCIII

Dear Current Social Work Students,

You have chosen to commit to a profession at a powerful time of change and challenge in our world. I have been thinking about you a lot these days—and imagining the anxiety, frustration, fear—as well as your exasperation at not being about to “get out there” right now—all the complexity you must be feeling.

As a long time social work educator (25+ years), former social work dean, and now professor and social work futurist, I have been doing a lot of work in spaces where people are thinking about “what comes next” for our world and our profession. I want to share a few thoughts.

In every class I’ve taught, I always have encouraged students to remember that what I’m teaching is what we know “right now.” It is a) always incomplete and imperfect and b) subject to change at any moment as the world changes. I have to underscore how important this is to remember right now—and I send it out to each one of you. Read on.

I came of age when AIDS was named and a global movement around it was born—DURING my MSW education. I learned directly that many things I’d been taught were already “out of date” before I was even done. I had to learn on the ground, in the field, from my colleagues, from the clients, from the community. I had to operate in humility at a level that professional education sometimes minimizes. Sometimes, highly capable, professional people “don’t know” what to do next, and they use the best of who they are, what they know, and their most important asset—openness to learning—to EVOLVE on the fly. I became a better human and hopefully a better social worker because of the deep learning that happened during this time of generational change. As the Zen proverb states, if you’re paying attention, “the work will teach you how to do it.”

Now we’re in a new time. I wanted to try to find a way to bring those lessons forward and offer them for what they are worth. The learning you are doing now, at this time in history, is learning you will never forget. The following is my current best thinking and advice in eight key areas, offered with all the same provisos stated above.

1. Equity, equity, equity.

We are seeing example after example of inequity playing out as COVID-19 evolves in our lives and the world. We know, as social workers, that any “crisis” is usually the product of systematic neglect, bias, racism (and other isms), and structural challenges that must be addressed. COVID-19 (as a virus) is undoubtedly like nothing we’ve ever seen, but the way in which it plays out is full of textbook examples of the social, political, and structural determinants of health. Watch this space and contribute with everything you’ve got, and support those who have been active in these areas, to lean into all efforts to address this urgently. The equity work we’ve been engaged in can help us, but the challenges are formidable and must stay central. It is also vital to be aware of and guard against “white saviorism” during this time, and to note that good people have likely already been working hard at this array of injustices before the army of helpers arrived. It is important to enter these spaces with humility and openness.

2. Creativity is paramount.

Learn to see and seize opportunities to do things in new ways. There is an openness to doing things in new ways that is rare in our increasingly bureaucratized systems of care. Mutual aid collectives are springing up that have widened our sense of what is possible in terms of community strength. Know that being stretched to value things, realize things, and try new things is a hallmark of hard and challenging times. As we are creating/inventing and problem solving, we are also “designing,” and there turns out to be new and justice-anchored guidance for doing that in ways that align with social work values. This framework is referred to as “design justice,” and I think it marks an exciting and generative space for us to learn, grow, and create. Further, let’s not forget the treasure of our artists, writers, and creatives during this time. They are just beginning to share their work that will inspire, sustain, and guide us in the days and years to come.

This past year, I developed a social work game to help us think more creatively about possible scenarios we may face as a profession, and remarkably, we are getting the chance to think through many elements of many of these scenarios simultaneously (including one scenario that included a pandemic and challenged social work writ large to consider what our unique role would be in recovery). The need to keep imagining how various scenarios may play out is a hallmark of futures practice and essential to boost our collective readiness and expand our moral and sociological imaginations for possible futures. While not everything may need to be reinvented, many things may. Think outside the box, or maybe more accurately, realize COVID-19 may have disintegrated our “box.” It’s time to think bigger.

3. Constant learning.

From the profession, from other professions, from clients, from communities—there remain multiple ways of coming at challenges. It has become increasingly, but now urgently, true that to be an effective professional in today’s world means to be a learner. CONNECT and keep learning through these extraordinary times. And learn in ways that may be ahead of where “university anchored” learning may be—learning networks and collaboratives. Your degree will matter, but as important will be the networks by which your knowledge and sense of possibilities are renewed and expanded after your traditional education comes to a conclusion. Learning to work in complexity will be a hallmark of success in everything that comes next. When you are beginning to look for a job, I strongly recommend asking prospective employers about the style, methods, and structures they use in supporting a “learning organization.” (I recommend Twitter, and social work has a burgeoning and robust community in these spaces, but this has to be somewhat carefully curated. Start with hashtags like #socialwork, #MacroSW, #swtech, and #SWfutures—and for our times, #SWcovid19.)

4. Hold onto and keep close the social work Code of Ethics and UN Declaration of Human Rights.

I am a fan of the NASW Code of Ethics. Although not perfect, it can provide essential grounding in complex times. I’m also a fan of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. There is some discussion right now regarding “the fog of war”—that things are starting to happen quickly and without adequate human rights or ethics discourse. We have to watch out for and guard against this as much as we are able. I have been in many situations professionally in which I, as the social worker, was sometimes the only and/or first person to bring some of these ethics and/or human rights challenges into fast-paced decision-making. On a truly future-focused note, we must also ready ourselves for the reality that things are increasingly happening (largely because of tech on the ground) that are moving beyond both our current ethics and human rights guidelines. New practice situations will continue to present, and we must be ready to build upon and evolve them in real time.

5. Push your regulatory and accreditation structures.

We all know that our regulatory and accreditation structures and systems move slowly. As much as I press hard for change and often push against their rigid boundaries, I do see and value their larger purpose. I worry about the absence of common frameworks and goals and equally worry about harm to the community done without some degree of consistency building in our profession. (I have seen abuses, and it’s not pretty.) But new times call for new kinds of agility and a grounded, human sense of possibility. We need new kinds of permissions to interrupt and redirect what isn’t working, new ways to experiment and test new methods quickly, and more. We need to use our very best macro skills to push for this, and you will be part of this. I have had both successes and failures “pushing back” and getting things changed that need to be changed. Let’s do more of this with greater degrees of skill in the future. I believe there may be more openness than at any other time in our lifetimes for structural and administrative revision.

6. Work WITH your faculty and university leadership as much as you can.

Universities were in a state of powerful change, pressure, and transformation before the COVID-19 chapter began. Things have gotten very intense throughout the entire sector right now. Work together with your fellow students and your faculty/administration to find solutions productively right now. Be clear about your interests, needs, and priorities, and develop structures to be heard. Expect responses that address your concerns. Without exception, I can assure you that your school WANTS YOU TO SUCCEED and wants to find reasonable, creative pathways forward for you. Help each other get there.

7. Be mindful of the future of work.

What is happening during COVID-19 is a harbinger of something that future of work scholars and writers have been exploring and reporting on for years. Questions such as what is the work, who does the work, where does the work happen—along with tracking the shifts in the “work-industrial complex” are powerful dynamics in our present world. The work world you move into once you complete your education (AND YOU WILL!) will likely be accelerating even faster. You may not have received any education about this—it is a perfect example of the world changing perhaps faster than our higher education system has absorbed—but you can prepare yourself and should. There is a wealth of good information available about this topic. Social work as a profession and a set of jobs will absolutely be affected, and we need to think about how we wish to structure our future in this new and evolving work ecosystem.

8. Take care. Look for light, but be aware of the trouble.

It is important to nourish yourself and your psyche by seeking out the positives that emerge during these kinds of challenging times. And there are many examples. Beauty, solidarity, and generosity are all around right now. (The memes alone are legendary! We have to laugh!) But there are also examples of ways in which power is being grabbed and exploitation is predicted. All of these things belong on our radar screens, and many of you will work in direct opposition to these negative trends. Our profession, as always but especially now, precludes us from “looking away.” When we are at our best, we look at inequality, inequity, and oppression DIRECTLY and do everything we can to challenge and interrupt them.

Some are already imagining what a post-COVID-19 world will look like. Collect these ideas and talk with other social workers about them (and others!). Don’t look to these to predict. That isn’t the point. The point is to help us expand our collective sensibilities about what is possible—and guide us to identify how to prioritize the future we most want—and then build toward it together. Learning from and working with the Institute for the Future, it has been my recent work to engage social workers across the board to prepare them to consider and embrace futures thinking as a vital set of skills for what comes next for the profession and the world for this very reason. This is because futures thinking helps us have a grounding in how to be productive, generative, ethical, and focused on creating a path toward a future we want (collectively), but acknowledging that other futures are possible or plausible or even beyond. Because in truth, the world that we knew it, as we know it, is changing faster than anyone could have anticipated. You, and all social workers, belong in this space—to both learn and to contribute.

At the end of the day, a view of history can strengthen and contextualize what is happening during times of uncertainty. The brilliant writer Arundhati Roy recently wrote a stirring piece on the COVID-19 world we are living in, and reminds us:

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway, between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging our carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

My fellow social workers in training, I feel for you right now, and I believe in you. Take heart. This is an extraordinary time to be entering a profession focused on well being, justice, and—I’ll just say it—love. To watch COVID-19 unfold—especially to watch the degree to which we see on full view our histories of inequity, our missteps and missed opportunities, the harsh light of market values vs. human rights—it all makes our values “ache” deeply and assures that some degree of anger regarding these injustices will be a constant companion to our work. Hopefully, this anger will operate hand in hand with our ability to seek positive solutions and meet a hurting world right where it is.

Social work students, hang on. The world needs your brightness, your ideas, your hope, your anger, your determination, your vision—both individually and collectively. Our profession (actually pretty much all helping professions) is being tested right now. We will grow during this time. And social work itself will likely change, become enlarged, and become stronger even as some things break along the way. There will be grief and trauma that we are uniquely ready to meet and help to alleviate—and we will need to face our own need for healing, too. There will be new emergent structures that have potential to enhance human well being born of this pain and tragedy, and also places where we are uniquely ready to contribute.

Get ready, get connected, and get going. You are what is next. It is your time.

The future is calling. Welcome.

Laura Burney Nissen, PhD, LMSW, CADCIII, is a professor in the School of Social Work at Portland State University and a research fellow at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, CA. She lives and works in the Pacific Northwest and can be reached at nissen@pdx.edu and followed on @lauranissen on Twitter.