Role of the Social Worker in Time of Covid-19 Pandemic

A certain number of tasks that social work should perform through social work services, but also through social workers, can be determined. The nature of these tasks represents the special and often difficult position that social work should take between individual care and control of society. Social work should represent the individual and his/ her superior interests in society and, at the same time, it should be the interface between society and man in special situations/ needs. Because social work activities should be oriented in several directions – towards the individual and towards society – its roles also generate an inherent source of tension: the contradiction between care, healing, and control. Starting from the special situation of the Covid-19 pandemic mankind is going through, the authors set out to analyse the role needs of the social worker during this historical period. The methodology of the research consists in carrying out a theoretical analysis of the literature on the actions of the specialist in social work and, for the formulation of directions with practical application, a SWOT analysis of needs was carried out, which correlated with the field activity of a group of social workers from Western Romania. Conclusions: the approach is an innovative one, which can be the basis for improving the management of social services and preventing the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.


Keywords: social worker, role, Covid-19, pandemic, prevention, management