Child protection social workers in Italy and the Covid-19 challenges: Redefining services to support children and their families

During the Covid-19 pandemic, social workers played an essential role in helping people understand what was happening and cope with new unforeseen difficulties, even carrying out new tasks and activities. Social workers were asked to redefine their work methods to maintain aid relationships with families. This reorganization was complex and challenging for child protection services. The paper will discuss the results of a qualitative research project aimed to describe the Italian child protection social workers' functions during the Covid-19 pandemic. Three online focus groups were conducted with child protection social workers. These focus groups helped researchers explore the new organization of social workers' work in child protection services, which was aimed at maintaining their role and performing the new tasks they need to carry out to support families and children. Three main areas of discussion emerged from the qualitative analysis: (1) postponed and maintained activities; (2) remote work advantages and challenges; and (3) new professional learning.