Challenges to social work professionalism during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative analysis of child protective workers’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

The pandemic of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected millions of children and families worldwide, disrupting their daily lives and impacting the ability of Child Protective Services (CPS) to respond to children in need. This small-scale study involving 23 child protective workers from local governments in different regions of Estonia used in-depth, semi-structured interviews to explore child protection work with children in need during the COVID −19 pandemic. Issues resulting from the pandemic that could cause detriment to children was identified. For some children, the COVID-19 crisis has eliminated the possibility of any investigation due to social distancing, which led to information deficit, regardless of the character or level of apparent risk to the child. Children’s rights to protection and continuity of care have been threatened, as urgently needed services and other CPS protective measures have been hindered or postponed due to lockdown. Examples of some services that continued online were provided. Furthermore, COVID-19 pandemic created new expectations and roles for CPS, questioning the fundamental goals of child protection work. Nevertheless, child protective workers have demonstrated creativity in finding ways to reach children in need during the pandemic, for example by setting up a crisis hotline, a crisis home.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• child in need
• child protective workers
• Child Protective Services
• ecological systems theory
• Estonia

Acknowledgments

The study is informed by the ‘Effective Participatory Discourse: Experiences of Participants’ Engagement in the Context of Child Protection Assessment Practices’ project, funded by the Estonian Research Council, grant number PSG305.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Estonian Research Council [PSG305].

Notes on contributors

Karmen Toros

Karmen Toros is a professor at Social Work in School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University. She is actively involved in social work education and training of child protection workers. Her research focuses on child welfare and protection, strengths-perspective in child protection practice and is particularly interested in assessment of child well-being.

Asgeir Falch-Eriksen

Asgeir Falch-Eriksen is a senior researcher at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. He is a political scientist whose main research interest is in political theory, law, the politics of families and child protection. His research is empirically focused on children’s rights and child protection.

Rafaela Lehtme

Rafaela Lehtme is a junior researcher at Social Work in School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University. Her research focuses on a child-centred approach to shared parenting, specifically, bird’s nest parenting.