The Experiences of social workers in service delivery during COVID-19
Abstract
During COVID-19 social workers encountered numerous challenges in rendering services to clients. The national lockdown and working from home worsened the situation. COVID-19 instilled fear to the global population, including social workers who were offering services during this pandemic. The current study aims to explore social workers’ experiences of service delivery during COVID-19 to determine the extent of damage caused by COVI D-19. Exploring these challenges will assist in developing strategies for addressing further damage, while enhancing social workers’ well-being. This is a qualitative study that uses a case study research design to explore social workers' experiences. Participants were 15 social workers from the Department of Social Development in Waterberg District, Limpopo Province. The study used one-on-one interviews with semi-structured interviews for data collection. Participants were selected using purposive sampling. Data was analysed using thematic data analysis. The findings indicate that services were rendered telephonically and face-to-face. Some participants were unhappy with rendering services during COVID-19 due to fear of contracting the virus and spreading it to their families, while others were happy to offer their services and had minimal fears. Some participants were affected by poor work-life balance. Most work that social workers did during COVID-19 concerned the dispatching of food parcels. Resources were limited which resulted in participants using their own expenses. The study recommends the Department of Social Development to provide enough resources to employees for rendering services. This was done from the bigger research study which was ethically approved by WITS which ethics number is SW22/07/04.
Downloads
References
Abrams, L. S., & Dettlaff, A. J. (2020). Voices from the frontlines: Social workers confront the COVID-19 pandemic. Social Work, 65, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/swaa030
Akaranga, S. I., & Makau, B. K. (2016). Ethical considerations and their applications to research: A case of the University of Nairobi. Journal of Educational Policy and Entrepreneurial Research, 3(12), 1–9.
Alem, D. D. (2020). An overview of data analysis and interpretations in research. International Journal of Academic Research in Education and Review, 8(1).
Al-Habaibe, A., Watkins, M., Waried, K., & Javareshk, M. P. (2021). Challenges and opportunities of remotely working from home during COVID-19 pandemic. Global Transitions, 3, 99–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.glt.2021.11.001
Allibang, S. D. (2020). Methods of research: Simple, short, and straightforward way of learning methods of research (2nd ed.). Amazon.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Casteel, A., & Bridier, N. L. (2021). Describing populations and samples in doctoral student research. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 16, 339–362. https://doi.org/10.28945/4766
Connelly, L. M. (2016). Trustworthiness in qualitative research. MEDSURG Nursing, 25(6), 435–436.
Cope, D. G. (2014). Methods and meanings: Credibility and trustworthiness of qualitative research. Oncology Nursing Forum, 41(1), 89–91.
De Tiroina, S., Madhani, & Sulaiman. (2021). The effect of work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic on work-life balance and its impact on employee performance of ACEH communication, informatics, and economic office. International Journal of Business Management and Economic Review, 4(2), 55–63. https://doi.org/10.35409/IJBMER.2021.3240
De Vos, A. S., Strydom, H., Fouché, C. B., & Delport, C. S. L. (2011). Research at grass roots: For the social sciences and human service professions (4th ed.). Van Schaik Publishers.
Etikan, I., Musa, S. A., & Alkassim, R. S. (2016). Comparison of convenience sampling and purposive sampling. American Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics, 5(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajtas.20160501.11
Farkas, K. J., & Romaniuk, R. (2020). Social work, ethics and vulnerable groups in the time of Coronavirus and COVID-19. Society Register, 4(2), 67–82. https://doi.org/10.14746/sr.2020.4.2.05
Gunhidzirai, C., Chamisa, S. F., & Ruzungunde, V. S. (2022). Exploring the experiences of social and auxiliary workers during COVID-19 crisis in South Africa. [Publication details incomplete], 295–307. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-686-620221026
Hilton, C. E. (2015). The importance of pretesting questionnaires: A field research example of cognitive pretesting the Exercise Referral Quality of Life Scale (ER-QLS). International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2015.1091640
Holmes, M. R., Rentrope, C. R., Korsch-Williams, A., & King, J. A. (2021). Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on posttraumatic stress, grief, burnout, and secondary trauma of social workers in the United States. Clinical Social Work Journal, 49, 495–504. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-021-00795-y
Isangha, S. O., Choi, W. M. A., & Chiu, M. Y. L. (2020). COVID-19: Where are the Nigerian social workers? Qualitative Social Work, 20(1–2), 343–349. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325020973336
Ishrath, A., Ahmed, M. M., Pal, N., & Muppidi, S. (2021). COVID-19 (pandemic): A review article. Journal of Research in Medical and Dental Science, 9(10), 281–288.
Ipsen, C., Van Veldhoven, M., Kirchner, K., & Hansen, J. P. (2021). Six key advantages and disadvantages of working from home in Europe during COVID-19. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(4), 1826. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041826
Kallio, H., Pietilä, A.-M., Johnson, M., & Kangasniemi, M. (2016). Systematic methodological review: Developing a framework for a qualitative semi-structured interview guide. Journal of Advanced Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13031
Kennedy-Clark, S. (2012). Design research and the solo higher degree research student: Strategies to embed trustworthiness and validity into the research design. [Publication details incomplete], 1–15.
Leburu-Masigo, G. E., & Kgadima, N. P. (2020). Gender-based violence during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. Gender & Behaviour, 18(4), 16618–16629.
Martinez-Lopez, J. A., Lazaro-Perez, C., & Gomez-Galan, J. (2021). Predictors of burnout in social workers: The COVID-19 pandemic as a scenario for analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(10), 5416. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18105416
McFadden, P., Ross, J., Moriarty, J., Mallett, J., Schroder, H., Ravalier, J., Manthorpe, J., Currie, D., Harron, J., & Gillen, P. (2021). The role of coping in the wellbeing and work-related quality of life of UK health and social care workers during COVID-19. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(2), 815. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020815
Murphy, J., Mayclin, D., Richards, A., & Roe, D. (2015). A multi-method approach to survey pretesting (pp. 1–11). [Publication details incomplete].
Oben, A. I. (2021). Research instruments: A questionnaire and an interview guide used to investigate the implementation of higher education objectives and the attainment of Cameroon’s Vision 2035. European Journal of Education Studies, 8(7), 113–130. https://doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v8i7.3808
Okafor, A. (2021). Role of social worker in the outbreak of pandemics: A case of COVID-19. Cogent Psychology, 8(1), 1939537. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2021.1939537
Pana, S. C., & Sana, F. (2020). Pretesting versus posttesting: Comparing the pedagogical benefits of errorful generation and retrieval practice. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1–69. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000345
Parveen, H., & Showkat, N. (2017). Research ethics. Media and Communication, 1–3.
Pascoe, K. M. (2021). Remote service delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic: Questioning the impact of technology on relationship-based social work practice. British Journal of Social Work, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcab242
Rahman, M. S. (2017). The advantages and disadvantages of using qualitative and quantitative approaches and methods in language testing and assessment research: A literature review. Journal of Education and Learning, 6(1), 102–112. https://doi.org/10.5539/jel.v6n1p102
Ramoshaba, D. J. (2023). Thematic content analysis of the roles of social workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. International Journal of Social Science Research and Review, 6(8), 118–127. https://doi.org/10.47814/ijssrr.v6i8.1467
Rana, J., Dilshad, S., & Ahsan, M. A. (2021). Ethical issues in research. In Global encyclopedia of public administration, public policy, and governance (pp. 1–7). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_462-1
Richards, M., Grinnell, J. R., & Unrau, Y. A. (2011). Social work research and evaluation (9th ed.). Oxford University Press.
Roy, C. M., Bukuluki, P., Casey, S. E., Jagun, M. O., John, N. A., Mabhena, N., Mwangi, M., & McGovern, T. (2022). The impact of COVID-19 on gender-based violence prevention and response services in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and South Africa: A cross-sectional survey. Frontiers in Global Women’s Health, 2, 780771. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgwh.2021.780771
Shenton, A. K. (2004). Strategies for ensuring trustworthiness in qualitative research projects. Education for Information, 22, 63–75.
Stahl, N. A., & King, J. R. (2020). Expanding approaches for research: Understanding and using trustworthiness in qualitative research. Journal of Developmental Education, 44(1), 26–28.
Stenfors, T., Kajamaa, A., & Bennett, D. (2020). How to assess the quality of qualitative research. The Clinical Teacher, 17, 596–599.
Taherdoost, H. (2022). What are different research approaches? Comprehensive review of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method research, their applications, types, and limitations. Journal of Management Science & Engineering Research, 5(1), 53–63. https://doi.org/10.30564/jmser.v5i1.4538
Terre Blanche, M., Durrheim, K., & Painter, D. (Eds.). (2014). Research in practice: Applied methods for the social sciences (2nd ed.). Juta and Company.
Theofanidis, D., & Fountouki, A. (2018). Limitations and delimitations in the research process. Perioperative Nursing, 7(3), 155–162. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2552022
Vainio, A. (2012). Beyond research ethics: Anonymity as “ontology,” “analysis” and “independence.” Qualitative Research, 13(6), 685–698. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794112459669
Wiles, R., Crow, G., Heath, S., & Charles, V. (2008). The management of confidentiality and anonymity in social research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 11(5), 417–428. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645570701622231
Copyright (c) 2026 Thobeka Sweetness Nkomo, Fhumulani Precious Munyai
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
