The 4th International Symposium on Social Work Practitioner Research

The pervasive use of technology in our personal and professional lives has massively shifted how people relate, interact, and collaborate. Social work practice, as a relationship-based intervention, inevitably evolves to meet the new challenges brought by these technological shifts. The COVID-19 pandemic further catalysed the roll-out of digital assessment and intervention in social work professional practice, and the increasing popularity of AI has also prompted experimental applications of such technology in supporting social work administration and interventions.

As a community of social work practitioner researchers and academics, we are keen to start the critical conversations on the new opportunities and challenges that these technological advances have brought to our professional practice and education. At the core of these conversations is to explore, with community members, service users as well as practitioners and academics, on how these changes might promote accessibility to services for some and hinder participation of the others. Ethical issues and new solutions to address digital safeguarding issues would be considered as well in relation to innovations in social work practice and education. The event will include international speakers offering keynotes and plenary talks, joined by UK social work practitioners and service users to discuss the application and limitations of existing research on various identified topics of interest.

This is the 4th International Symposium on Social Work Practitioner Research, sponsored by the Social Science Festival at Durham University. In the past years, the event has already attracted more than 400 participants from more than 6 countries to join us in celebrating the excellence of social work research and the leadership and participation of social workers in the due processes. With the intention to broaden our reach in ASEAN countries and foster dialogues across continents, the symposium will feature a keynote speaker from Singapore discussing the use of digital technology and AI in social work practicum and related challenges.