The Re-Awakening Role of Social Workers in Policy-making following a Global Pandemic: Lessons for Education and Practice

Social workers have largely contributed to policy analysis and planning since the rise of the discipline’s professional identity. It is through lobbying, policy advocacy and macro-practice that responses about human rights and social justice are crafted and integrated in international and transnational social work practice. Yet, these roles have for a while been suppressed in an attempt to standardise and confine the profession in the limits of a given nation’s legal and social status. Public crises like the recent novel virus SARS-CoV-2, come to force us to rethink what the role of social workers has been before such crises. This paper considers whether we are well prepared to take on these roles again, when historically education and practice have shied away from them, leaving contemporary practitioners in a predicament. This paper will explore both challenges and opportunities in social policy, arising from COVID-19, and will argue the need to re-emphasise on the social workers’ role in social policy, with the intention to make recommendations for education and practice.