Telebehavioral practice basics for social worker educators and clinicians responding to COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Social Work’s Grand Challenge to Harness Technology for Social Good calls for educators to reevaluate their role and its significance for the future of social work. Information and communication technology (ICT)-mediated practice methods like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, gamification, and big data, among others, represent a new arena for social work practice. However, educators have been mostly inactive in developing curricula that support student knowledge, training, and decision-making on the adoption of technology for practice. In the United States, the Council on Social Work Education Futures Task Force highlighted this inaction as a matter of critical uncertainty for the field’s future. In contrast, this paper describes how a school of social work rapidly deployed a free, CE training program on the basics of telebehavioral health practice to the social work community to aid their response to COVID-19. The rapid deployment of that training has been distilled as ‘lessons learned’ for those wanting to join in efforts to address the field’s critical uncertainty regarding the adoption of technology. Information is presented about the reach of this training and includes feedback from participants. Additionally, the authors discuss whether COVID-19 can influence social work’s future rate of technology adoption.

KEYWORDS:

• Telebehavioral health practice training
• COVID-19
• e-social work practice
• harnessing technology
• future of social work

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Janna Hitzeman-Crampton for her technical assistance in supporting the design, development, and presentation of the Technology Practice Basics program.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David A. Wilkerson

David A. Wilkerson, MSW, PhD is Assistant Professor and Director of the Office of e-Social Work Education and Practice at Indiana University School of Social Work.

Samantha N. Wolfe-Taylor

Samantha N. Wolfe-Taylor, MSW, LCSW is Clinical Assistant Professor and Associate Director of the Office of e-Social Work Education and Practice at Indiana University School of Social Work.

Christian K. Deck

Christian K. Deck, MSW, LSW is Visiting Lecturer at Indiana University School of Social Work.

Elizabeth A. Wahler

Elizabeth A. Wahler, MSW, PhD is Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Indiana University School of Social Work.

Tamara S. Davis

Tamara S. Davis, Ph.D., MSSW is  Dean of the Indiana University School of Social Work.