This issue is coming out in a period in which the global Covid-19 pandemic is extending its impact on the lives of those whom social workers support, and likey also social workers themselves and the nature of service provision. With the pandemic has come, lockdowns, self-isolation and social distancing, all of which have compounded the already difficult experiences of many individuals and communities. While working with isolation, loneliness and the need to generate hope, can be regarded as perhaps every day fare for social workers, current climates have really accentuated the need to understand such experiences and the possible roles social work can play in ameliorating them. This issue of Practice, brings together, fittingly in the times of the global, four international articles examining isolation and loneliness, before then concluding with a fifth which looks more specifically at how practice responses are changing within the context of the pandemic.
We start with two articles that focus on the experiences of older people. Firstly Sheeba Joseph and Bishnu Mohan Dash provide us with a quantitative study exploring alienation among older people living in both residential and own community settings in India. Using a twenty item alienation scale, it perhaps comes as no surprise that they established there was a much higher level of loneliness amongst those in residential care than those living at home, in the community and amongst family and friends. With this isolation comes feelings of depression and hopelessness. They also established significant disparities on the basis of gender, marital status and economic well-being. They suggest there are strong cross-cutting messages for social work practice and research. The second article by Paula Devine, Lorna Montgomery, Mandy Cowden and Fiona Murphy provides an account of an example of a community response to these experiences of isolation and loneliness among older people, albeit, in the different context of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The authors reflect on lessons learnt from the implementation of CLARE (Creative Local Action Responses and Engagement), a not for profit community interest company, providing a community-based response for isolated older people. Devine et al., illustrate how community engagement and creative thinking are used to reach the most isolated and understand the unique lived experiences of loneliness. They conclude with a call for social work to develop flexible and personal approaches in a manner that also ensures capacity building and sustainability.
The second pair of articles cover some similar themes but with regards to homelessness and victims of intimate partner violence. Our third article is a rich qualitative study by Barbora Gřundělová and Zuzana Stanková exploring the role hope plays in individuals lives as they respond to the difficult and isolating experiences of homelessness in the Czech Republic. The study offers both the opportunities and limitations of a hope based framework for considering the future. Interestingly like Devine et al., Gřundělová and Stanková highlight how understanding heterogeneity emphasises the need for practice to hold on to the individual and their lived experience, and use creative practice and person centred approaches, to support individuals through the uncertainty and loss of homelessness. The pervasiveness of such experience is also illustrated by victims of intimate partner violence in rural areas of Zimbabwe. In their qualitative article, Cyndirela Chadambuka and Ajwang’ Warria, recount how victims told them of the important role that informal support, notably family and church played for them, and argue the need for social workers to incorporate such into their multi-agency responses. They intimate how isolation, in this instance through violence and rurality, easily becomes a barrier to seeking more formal systems of support.
Our final article, brings the exploration of support through isolation into the more immediate context of Covid-19. Laura Cook and Danny Zschomler offer an account of a rapid research project interviewing thirty one English child and family social workers, about their perspectives of undertaking virtual home visits during the current pandemic. Again the article highlights the need for creativity and novel practice approaches, including the heightened use of Internet technologies, before considering that there are both advantages and disadvantages in the remote or virtual approach to practice. What struck me was that under the conditions of the pandemic this article also provides an account of the emerging sense of the loneliness and isolation of the practitioner, as well as those they are supporting.
N.B. The editorial board elected not to add to the clamour for Covid-19 special editions. Rather we felt social workers on the whole needed much more immediate guidance and support brought through the faster processes of agency and other Internet communications. We did however commit ourselves to ensure that we timely process and publish any Covid-19 articles we receive, and Cook’s represents the first of such.
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