LAKELAND - A two-year study conducted by researchers from Portage College and Northern Lakes College that found a considerable disparity in the availability and training of social workers between urban and rural settings was the topic of discussion of an online meeting held recently.
This research project focused on the roles of social workers in health and senior care in Alberta. The meeting was led by Dr. Tracy Orr, Research Lead for the Portage College school of Community Social Work, with members of the faculty of social work discussing the results of the research project, along recommendations that came from the study.
Over the two years of the study, social workers who work in health and senior care settings throughout Alberta were surveyed, along with managers of health and senior care facilities, with questionnaires being filled out.
According to information released from Portage College, the study found that social workers employed in urban healthcare settings mostly link patients to resources, participate in multidisciplinary teams, provide psycho-social assessments, offer counselling, along with supporting patients with chronic illnesses.
However, the situation in rural health and senior care settings is quite different, the release said, stating that the roles in which social workers typically fulfill in urban areas are often carried out by staff members who do not have the necessary training. Furthermore, in rural senior care settings, social workers are virtually nonexistent, with managers citing a lack of funding as the primary obstacle to providing professional social-emotional care for patients.
Orr said the results of this study have implications for social work education, particularly for what those in the field consider to be generalist social work education.
“They also have implications for rural social work practicums and the need to work with practicum sites to understand the roles that social workers can fulfil,” she explained. “At a provincial level, advocacy for supporting mental health in rural health and senior care facilities is crucial to ensure that social work graduates can contribute to their communities in these service sectors.”
After the results of the research project had been rolled out and talked over by those at the meeting, Orr brought forward several recommendations that had come out of the study. These include greater support for geriatric and health social work, rigorous supervision for practitioners in rural settings, and offering extra training for social workers.
Orr stated that it would be really useful to see greater emphasis on geriatric and health social work, especially in rural areas of the province.
“We’d love to see greater advocacy…even from our own social work association in Alberta,” she said. “Geriatric and health social work sometimes takes a back seat to some of the other forms of social work care.”
Orr continued by talking about the need for rigorous supervision for rural practitioners-including training of senior care settings in the role of social workers. The need for supervision, understanding the role of social work, and then providing supervision for practitioners is key. She continued by saying that in rural social work, it isn’t uncommon for social workers to work in isolated conditions, adding that in some cases, they could be the only person there doing their role in whatever place they work.
One of the questions asked to respondents in the survey, she said, is if there has ever been a social worker in the setting where they are employed.
“For some people, there had never been a social worker or anyone working or providing social emotional care in some of those settings, particularly in rural settings,” she explained.
Another recommendation that came from the report was training for social workers. Orr said that continuing competency credits are something that all registered social workers have to complete yearly for their entire careers.
Orr suggested that certificate training be offered for Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) and Indigenous Bachelor of Social Work (IBSW) graduates and graduate degree social workers.
This, she said, could be done to focus more on the geriatric piece, especially the financial and legal matters which is increasingly an expectation particularly in senior care, but not necessarily a part of training in a social work context.
Offering these kinds of training, she said, will better prepare social workers.
“And there’s also a need for more education in the role of social work in health care and aging populations in general,” she stated.
There is also a desire to see more development of relationships with BSW and IBSW-granting universities to offer practicums in rural health and senior care settings, Orr said. Something to consider, she stated, is that while it isn’t unusual for people with Graduate and Masters degrees to be working in senior care and health care in hospitals and related facilities in urban centres, recruiting those same professionals to come to rural areas is more difficult.
“What we find in a lot of the areas in rural areas is that there rather than a graduate degree, you’ll find more people for example with a bachelor’s degree,” she said.
Furthermore, there is also a push to see more relationships between faculties of social work and nursing. This, Orr says, is the “best kind of combo for hospital and senior care” and a good way to support nursing.
That interdisciplinary relationship, she said, is really important in being able to support people professionally, but also having the ability to offer services to clients and residents.
Having options for people to meet with professionals both in-person and virtually was another recommendation that came from the study. Orr said that virtual solutions are not the only solutions.
“We’ve seen a lot of virtual solutions, but what patients want and what seniors might want is to have someone to talk with,” she said.
Orr finished by saying that the study will be prepared for publication, after which it can be spread out to other stakeholders, and government personnel and others interested in using the study as a stepping stone to other research.
