Traditionally, meetings between social workers and clients have taken place physically. Since the 2010s, there has been a digital development which has meant that more calls between social workers and clients take place digitally, for example via telephone, Skype or mobile applications. In the spring of 2020, Sweden’s social services faced a drastic change due to covid-19 caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In order to reduce the spread of infection, more and more meetings within the social services have had to take place digitally. This study aimed to investigate the impact and significance of digitalisation, in the form of the digital meeting, in the interaction and meeting between social welfare secretaries and clients in economic aid, viewed from the social welfare secretaries’ perspective.The empirical material has been collected through qualitative interviews with eight social welfare secretaries active within economic aid. With the intention of analyzing the empirical data a theoretical framework has been used, consisting of Goffman's theory of social interaction and new institutional organization theory.The result indicates that there are difficulties in establishing new, but also maintaining existing, relationships with clients when meetings become digital. The interaction between the parties is affected when the physical meeting is absent, especially if the parties cannot see each other. Apart from digital maturity, the digital meeting does not seem to require any other proficiency. The social welfare secretaries continue to describe that the proficiencies they already possess such as sensitivity, compassion and professionalism become more difficult to maintain in digital meetings. At the same time, the results show that digital meetings also have positive effects. It is mainly emphasized that digital meetings are more efficient and accessible than physical meetings. Furthermore, the impact and significance of the digital meeting is also affected by the client’s different conditions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-100701 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Linder, Tilda, Pavlovic, Maja |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för socialt arbete (SA), Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för socialt arbete (SA) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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