Reflections on social work 2020 under Covid-19 online magazine

ABSTRACT

Social Work 2020 under Covid-19 was a free online magazine conceived just before the UK’s Covid-19 full lockdown began, in late March 2020. It ran for five editions until 14 July 2020. In this time it published close to 100 articles from academics, people with lived experience, practitioners and students. It contained a far higher proportion of submissions from the last three groups of contributors than traditional journals. This article draws on the six-person editorial collective’s reflections on the magazine: it considers its founding purposes; its role in fostering social work community, utilizing an adaptation of social capital classifications; and its potential as a learning tool. It concludes by arguing that the magazine illustrates the potential for free online publications to be an important emergent vehicle for ‘everyday activism’ within the field of social work.

KEYWORDS:

• < Education
• community work < Practice
• e-learning
• equalities < Values
• social justice < Values
• user participation < Research
• knowledge transfer < Knowledge

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robin Sen

Dr. Robin Sen is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield and Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Dundee.

Brid Featherstone

Prof. Brid Featherstone is Professor of Social Work at the University of Huddersfield.

Anna Gupta

Prof. Anna Gupta is Professor of Social Work at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Christian Kerr

Christian Kerr is a social worker working with adults with brain injuries, employed by the NHS in North East England. He is writing here in an independent capacity.

Gillian MacIntyre

Dr. Gillian MacIntrye is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Strathclyde.

Abyd Quinn-Aziz

Abyd Quinn-Aziz is Senior Lecturer at the University of Cardiff.