ORCID Profile
0000-0002-9362-1441
Current Organisation
Monash University - Caulfield Campus
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Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 06-09-2023
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 03-01-2023
DOI: 10.1177/14680173221144441
Abstract: This is a reflective and theoretical article that discusses the impact of COVID-19 on social work practice. The pandemic, which made its presence felt globally from early 2020, continues to have ongoing and significant consequences for lives, livelihoods, public health, and personal freedoms. We argue that, while its specific contours are yet to be comprehensively researched, let alone the final outcomes understood, the pandemic has presented opportunities to develop new ways of thinking about social work and social work education. Through a discussion of relevant literature, including a recent work of fiction, we contend that social workers have been able to adapt, to some extent, to the pandemic but in reactive rather than proactive ways. The biopsychosocial and person-in-environment perspectives that characterize social work education, theory, and practice might be greatly enhanced by the introduction of complexity theory in terms of developing new thinking about the theoretical basis of social work, enabling new questions and new strategies to emerge to strengthen social work responses to the challenges posed by COVID-19. Arising from this theoretical article, there are many implications for introducing complexity theory within social work education programs. Complexity theory can provide a conceptual frame fit-for-purpose for social work pandemic and post-pandemic theory and practice.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 13-06-2022
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 07-09-2022
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 29-12-2021
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-2020
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 31-05-2021
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 15-07-2022
DOI: 10.1177/00208728221108934
Abstract: Little is known about the role of hospital social work during end-of-life care of older patients diagnosed with dementia. In Australia, hospital social work assessment and intervention have been predominantly framed through systems theories, which provide limited insight into the dynamics shaping intervention outcomes. Using a complexity-informed theoretical approach, this article draws from a study examining end-of-life transitions for people with dementia in general medicine units. Expanding from a traditional systems perspective, we demonstrate the potential for social work to engage in situation sensitive problem-solving methods drawn from complexity theory to facilitate family adjustment following end-of-life transitions.
No related grants have been discovered for Fiona McDermott.