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Social Connections: Trainers for e-social work
Newsletter #2
February 2022
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At this very moment, there are individuals only you can reach, and differences only you can make in their lives.
-Mike Dooley
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Dear members of the Social Connections network, we would like to introduce you to the second newsletter of the project. You will read more about what we have done so far, what are our plans for the next months, and see where you can access our results.
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What have we done so far?
📢 The Curriculum to teach e-social work is ready!
We are very excited to announce that the first project result is finished and ready to be downloaded from our website: the curriculum to teach e-social work. The document is available in multiple languages so you can choose the version you are interested in. This result is a shared effort to create a manual that will act as a pedagogical resource for trainers engaged in vocational education and training (VET) and continuing professional development (CPD) training courses for social professionals.
The manual will contribute to their upskilling, empowering them to identify the challenges and the opportunities offered by e-social work. Also, it will be a useful tool to help them in planning and implementing a training curriculum to educate social professionals on the use of ICT in their work with clients who are housebound due to a disability, illness, or COVID-19 related restrictions.
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Feel free to share it with your co-workers or your network of social professionals and spread the word! |
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📢 We surveyed the digital challenges faced by social professionals
Before launching the manual, we surveyed social professionals regarding their level of use and knowledge of digital tools in their work. Here are some of the most relevant conclusions:
- A vast majority of the professionals believe that ICT tools in social services have become more relevant than ever to maintain social connections, considering the current pandemic restrictions.
- Dealing with different ethical standards seems more challenging since more than half of the professionals are in doubt or are uncertain about doing it. This is the reason why this topic was included in this curriculum.
- Considering most of the professionals are familiar with ICT, it is striking that a vast majority of them do not know how to apply their digital knowledge and skills in the residential environment.
- Around 40% of the respondents are not sure about the skills needed to work on the appropriate digital resources for their work and nearly 40% declared that they do not have those skills. It was evident that specific training is needed in order to be able to identify and acquire the required skills to work on the right digital resources for e-social work, as only 20% of the respondents feel confident about it.
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What are we doing now?
Currently, we started the preparations for the second result, the “Toolbox for e-social work: learning by doing experience”. Within this, we will pilot and complement the first output by engaging trainers from the social work sector in learning the principle of teaching e-social work by co-constructing e-social work training modules addressing social professionals.
The developed training modules will then be gathered in a
toolbox for e-social work, a set of pedagogical activities that care professionals can implement with other users in a digital environment.
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Now, each partner is focusing on the recruitment of participants in these training sessions.
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What is coming next?
After the piloting of the training, the Social Connections partnership will work on the creation of the 3rd result: MOOCs for C-VET in digital social work. Under Virtual Campus LDA guidance, our team will build on materials developed for the toolbox and will elaborate MOOCs for social professionals. Then, we will pilot it with end-users.
We will keep you up to date with our progress in the next issue of our newsletter.
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Do you want to keep yourself updated with the project´s news?
Check the project website and you will have access to general information about the project, its consortium, useful resources, and a contact form if you want to be part of our network. Check our Facebook and LinkedIn pages, follow us and you will receive notifications every time we make a new post or release new project materials.
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This newsletter has been designed within the
"Social Connections: Trainers for e-social work", Grant Agreement no. 2020-1-ES01-KA226-VET-095080, implemented with the financial support of the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, therefore the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. |
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Copyright @Social Connections 2022
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