The impact of COVID-19 on social work mental health services in the United States: lessons from the early days of a global pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a multitude of changes to service delivery systems, heavily impacting the experiences of both clients and practitioners. Most research documenting these impacts is quantitative in nature. This qualitative exploratory cross-sectional study provides a richer understanding of the experiences of social work practitioners, clients receiving mental health services, and organizations in the early months of the pandemic. For clients, findings reflect a range of mental health issues, stressors, and sources of resilience. For practitioners, findings reflect professional and personal effects of the pandemic. This article details these findings and provides practice and policy recommendations.

KEYWORDS:

• Mental health
• COVID-19 pandemic
• telehealth
• clinician experiences
• clinical social work

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).