Digital Connection in Health and Social Work

This book focusses on the move to digitally mediated forms of teaching, learning and practice during Covid-19 and offers a series of case studies which showcase positive practices during this time. 

Education, Health and Social Work services have all been at the forefront of national debate since the first UK lockdown in March 2020. Schools, Colleges and Higher Education institutions moved rapidly to online delivery, with educators, parents, practice learning partners and students alike compelled to adapt to online connection, disrupting previous norms and forcing a rapid acquisition of new skills.

In health and social care practice, there has been a similar move to online delivery, whilst maintaining consistency of service and support. The pandemic also coincided with the recommendations of the national Digital Capabilities for Social Work project, commissioned by Health Education England, which produced a prescient framework for professional practice.

This book showcases innovative ways in which practice and education have responded to the challenges of Covid 19. With ongoing debate about planning for the next pandemic, as well as adapting to the post Covid landscape, the book is a valuable resource for all those involved in health and social work education and practice.

Foreword: Mark Nicholas, Chief Social Worker for NHS Digital

About this book: Dr Denise Turner and Dr Michael Fanner  

Section 1: Perspectives from Higher Education        

Chapter 1: “The trouble with normal …” Covid-19’s legacy and the multipotentiality for co-creating teaching, learning and assessing: Professor David Evans, OBE

Chapter 2: Reflecting on Population Health Learning in Pre-Registration Paramedic Education during a Global Pandemic: Dr Michael Fanner

Chapter 3: How Covid-19 has impacted upon the practice learning experience of pre-registration nursing students: Barbara Hoyle       

Chapter 4: COVID-19 and The Virtual Generation: Sarah Anderson, Cheryl Bardell, Abigail Doe, Emma Grady, Chloe Harrison, David Healey, Toritseju K. Imewe, Peter McNally, Lydia Nambe and Karen Skinner (BASW Students)        

Chapter 5: ‘I am not a cat’: Digital Capabilities and Covid-19: Dr Denise Turner

Section 2: Perspectives from Practice            

Chapter 6: Educating the future health workforce for the delivery of 21st Century Care: Henrietta Mbeah Bankas

Chapter 7: Putting Down the Laptop and Rolling Up the Sleeves – Mobilising a workforce of medical students to the Covid-19 frontline and its impact on their education: George Keal

Chapter 8: Digitalising the Volunteer Workforce Development to Support the NHS Delivery during Covid-19: Craig Harman    

Chapter 9: Practice Teaching Experiences of Preparing Redeployed Workforces for Critical Care during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Tim Kuhn

Section 3: Perspectives on Environments, Creativity and Wellbeing             

Chapter 10: Supporting care homes to be digitally connected: Hilary Woodhead and Natalie Ravenscroft

Chapter 11: Creative Social Work in a Virtual World Connection and Creativity: A case study on a Work Based Learning Module: Michaela Dunn, Rachel Hughes, and Andrew Linton

Chapter 12: Mindfulness, social work leadership and Covid-19: Annie Ho

Chapter 13: Can we keep the environment in mind while we adjust to renewed freedoms?: Dr Sandra Engstrom

Concluding Thoughts: Dr Denise Turner and Dr Michael Fanner

Dr Denise Turner is an experienced, registered Social Worker and currently works as a Senior Lecturer in Social Work.

Her research interests encompass digital practices and death, loss and bereavement. She was Chair of the Advisory Group for the national Digital Capabilities project for Social Work, delivered by SCIE and BASW and is interested in the positive challenges of digital media. She has authored a book on parents’ experiences of the professional response to sudden, unexpected child death and is currently involved with research focused on bereavement and grief resulting from Covid19.

Dr Michael Fanner graduated at as an Adult Nurse (2012) and a Specialist Community Public Health Nurse / Health Visitor (2013) at King’s College London and was awarded a PhD in critical social policy at the University of Greenwich in 2020. Up until 2018, Michael worked in a variety of clinical, academic and voluntary organisations in child protection, health visiting and emergency care. In 2018, Michael became a Lecturer at the University of West London and was a main architect of the UK’s first MSc Paramedic Science (Pre-Registration) and subsequent module leader and teacher for the population health and behavioural science, evidence translation, dissertation and complex paramedic care delivery modules. Since 2021, Michael has been a Senior Lecturer in Specialist Community Public Health Nursing at the University of Hertfordshire and leads on the safeguarding, research methods, public health and social policy modules and is also a second supervisor on two doctoral research projects. Michael has research interests in how ethically complex social issues are ‘dealt with’ in clinical practice. Michael is an Associate Editor for Child Abuse Review and is also a Board Member at Bournemouth and Poole College. In his spare time, Michael volunteers for St John Ambulance.