Fall 2013, Grammy award-winning hip-hop artist Drake released his third studio album, Nothing Was The Same. This album, which is lauded by many critics as Drake’s best work, examines the impact of fame on personal thoughts, relationships, and interactions. Song after song, the artist juxtaposes his life before, and after, commercial success. At its core, the project is a tale about two time periods and the process of circumstances that fundamentally altered those periods.

 

     This notion of comparing two points in time, and grappling with the insights that distinguish the two, offers a model for contemporary social work practice landscape.

 

     Veritably, the current COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed social work education, research, and practice. In the U.S., social work educational programs across the country quickly shifted to online platforms. The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) acted to offer relief, in the form of reducing field hours, for social work students. Conferences and meetings have adapted to virtual platforms. Nearly every state, in one way or another, altered regulatory edicts guiding social work practice. A new international research agenda related to managing and responding to pandemics has started to emerge; a number of academic journals have announced special issues focused on COVID-19. The International Federation of Social Workers Ethics Commission has formed a partnership with an international consortium of researchers to address ethical dilemmas associated with COVID-19 research. Indeed, the impact that the COVID-19 crisis has, and will continue to have, on social work cannot be overstated.

 

     Like so many, I have resorted to grappling with these impacts via a series of electronic memos, dizzying email chains, and a plethora of Zoom conferences and meetings. Recently, during one such meeting, I became involved in a discussion about what will happen once the pandemic subsides. Several participants, all social workers, discussed desires to get back to “normal.” One “yearned” for the time when “this is all over and things can go back to how they were before.”

 

     At the risk of sounding insensitive to this expected human response, I need to make something clear: Things are not going back to the way they were.

     Here are three overarching reasons.

 

     Without question, COVID-19 necessitated change. Social work entities should be commended for creatively mobilizing to meet emerging and evolving needs stemming from the pandemic.

 

     That said, many of the changes fostered conditions that demand keeping those changes. The adaptations made by state social work regulatory boards represent one key example. Rightfully so, most states have promulgated emergency guidelines to ensure that social workers could continue to deliver services. Namely, states enacted telehealth regulations as a mechanism to ensure continuity of care.

 

     Overall, these changes seem to have had the expected effect. From January 2020, when reports began to emerge about a mysterious “pneumonia” from China, to March 2020, Google searches related to telehealth increased 2400%. A recent piece in Kaiser Health News documented surges in the use of telehealth.

 

     In addition to addressing care continuity concerns, there are other positive consequences of these changes. Namely, the changes expanded social work services to new clients. Service depressed areas, such as parts of rural America, are now able to access services in ways unavailable prior to the pandemic. As well, agencies/organizations have made significant investments in tech infrastructure, as well as training related to these changes.    

 

     As social workers, we must acknowledge that, in responding to COVID-19, we have fundamentally changed the practice landscape. These changes are not something we can simply undo or roll back, lest we create and exacerbate the very problems (e.g., client continuity of care) the changes were put into place to address. That rollback would be unethical, irresponsible, and irrational. We have always had an obligation to ensure access to services. The pandemic forced us to actualize those obligations in new ways.