Eyes on the pandemic: using photovoice in group and remotely with social professionals of aged care facilities

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on aged care services. In Portugal, social workers are key frontline professionals in aged care services. A photovoice program called “Eyes on the Pandemic” was carried out to capture the internal experiences of frontline social workers working in aged care services during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Photovoice is a qualitative, participatory action-research method in which participants share key experiences of their lives through photographs and narratives (voices) presented and discussed with others. Thirteen social workers between 24 and 41 years old participated. This article describes the planning, implementation, and evaluation of this project. The findings suggest that the social workers’ experiences were defined by a reinvention of intervention, the maintenance of a balance between personal and professional life, the crucial importance of teamwork, management of the pandemic repercussions on older people’s well-being, and encounters with the uncertain future. The results illuminate the lived experience of the COVID-19 pandemic inside aged care facilities and could inform practices and policies by consolidating lessons learned during this difficult period. The benefits of attending the program referred by the participants, lead to conclude that photovoice proved to be a good group intervention tool.

KEYWORDS:

• Photovoice
• pandemic
• COVID-19
• aged care services
• social workers

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the social educators who have participated in the project for their time and collaboration.

Disclosure statement

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

Ethics statement

The approval was provided by the Ethics Committee of the Institute Polytechnic of Viseu (reference: N.º14/SUB/2020).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The project described was supported by the National Funds through Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) within the CINTESIS R&D Unit (reference UIDB/4255/2020).