Smart welfare and slow digital poverty: the new face of social work

ABSTRACT

The arrival of the pandemic which has affected the entire world, in addition to spreading fear due to the initial inability to manage the health crisis, has increased the fluidity and uncertainty in today’s society. The system of social security itself has not only changed its contents, combining primordial material welfare with a relational type of well-being, but also its form. We have gone from the more conventional form of face-to-face relationships to the more innovative methods making us talk about e-welfare with the use of digital technology. If on the one hand the latter has removed the space-time barriers, connoting itself as smart welfare, on the other hand it has generated a digital divide, with the creation of the digitally poor. During the pandemic, schools, health care and social services have had to invent new operational methods on an experimental level by using cutting-edge organisations to meet their new needs. The aim of the article is therefore to shed light on these changes which are taking place by highlighting the operational and ethical implications of digitalisation in order to find a new approach to social work which has been seen as ‘a beacon in the night of the pandemic’.

SOMMARIO

L’avvento della pandemia che ha coinvolto l’intero globo, oltre a disseminare paura per l’iniziale incapacità di gestione dell’emergenza sanitaria, ha acuito le caratteristiche di fluidità e di incertezza della società attuale. Lo stesso sistema di protezione sociale ha cambiato non solo i suoi contenuti, affiancando al primordiale benessere materiale (welfare) un benessere di tipo relazionale (wellbeing), ma anche le sue forme. Si è passati da quelle più classiche che richiedevano esclusivamente un rapporto face to face a quelle più innovative che fanno parlare di un e-welfare che contempla l’uso del digitale. Quest’ultimo, se da un lato ha consentito l’abbattimento delle barriere spazio-temporali, connotandosi come smart welfare, dall’altro, ha generato un digital divide, facendo nascere il povero digitale. In piena pandemia la scuola, la sanità, il servizio sociale per fronteggiare i bisogni nuovi hanno dovuto inventare modalità operative inedite o agite solo a livello sperimentale da organizzazioni all’avanguardia. Scopo dell’articolo è pertanto quello di porre in luce questi cambiamenti in atto, evidenziando le implicazioni operative ed etiche del processo di digitalizzazione per ripensare ad un nuovo volto del lavoro sociale che ha rappresentato “un faro nella notte pandemica”.

KEYWORDS:

• Smart welfare
• e-welfare
• digital poverty
• proximity
• social work

PAROLE CHIAVE:

• Smart welfare
• e-welfare
• povertà digitale
• prossimità
• lavoro sociale

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marinella Sibilla

Marinella Sibilla is associate professor at the LUMSA University in Rome, Department of Law, Economics, Politics and Modern Languages. She teaches Social Policy and Comparative Welfare Systems in social work degree courses. Her research interests concern areas of social policies regarding immigrants, the elderly, minors, environmental policies and the new sector of food policies, also comparing them with other European countries. She has carried out a large amount of research both in the academic field and on behalf of public bodies. She was a visiting professor at the Katholische Fachhochschule of Freiburg; the Universidad of Santiago de Compostela; the Universidad of Zaragoza. The ‘Mediterranean Knowledge International Centre for Studies and Research’ is one of the various scientific committees in which she takes part.

Antonella Gorgoni

Antonella Gorgoni is a specialist social worker, professor of History and principles of Social Services at the LUMSA University in Taranto. She was a member of the territorial disciplinary council in Puglia and a technical member of the Commission for the revision of the Deontological Code for Croas Puglia (Italy). She is a teacher/trainer in various public and private institutions. She has carried out research assignments on the juvenile world, on foreign minors in Italy and on the condition of the elderly. In addition to contributions in collective texts, she has published numerous articles in scientific journals.