24, 25, 31 August and 1 September 2021
COVID 19 pandemic appeared as a global threat towards the end of 2019 and is still a major health issue across the world. The pandemic has adversely affected all the sections of the society, especially the children, migrant workers, the senior citizens and the chronically ill people. Social work professionals have found new opportunities of interventions during the pandemic.
The intellectual, social, emotional, psychological, physical and cultural development of children is seriously affected. Mental health issues of the children are not adequately addressed through online platforms. Social workers work with children to address all these issues during the pandemic. Another impact of the COVID 19 is in the livelihood sector. Millions of people especially in the unorganised sector became job less during the pandemic lock down across the world. Before recovering from the adverse impacts of first wave of the pandemic, the second wave appeared and the lock down was reintroduced in several parts of the world. Now the global community is living under the scare of third wave of the pandemic. The discovery of vaccine has reduced the fear and anxiety associated with this pandemic. However, the availability and effectiveness of the vaccine are the growing concerns.
Social work profession is part of the disaster management or the crisis intervention in the pandemic context. Social work institutions across the world have responded to this unprecedented pandemic in their own unique ways. Every social work institute gained certain experience and expertise in dealing with such crises in the future. COVID 19 pandemic gave an opportunity for the social work fraternity across the world to gain experience and expertise in various disaster management strategies and interventions especially in the livelihood, education and mental health sectors. These newly derived knowledge and skill base, if documented, would form an invaluable intellectual property of the social work profession. It can definitely form the core of indigenously developed expertise for meeting pandemics in future.
In this context, BPHES’ CSRD Institute of Social Work and Research, Ahmednagar, organised four days’ national level seminar for sharing the field experience of the students of social work from the Institute on 24, 25, and 31 August and 1 September 2021. Altogether 115 paper presentations were scheduled in 28 parallel sessions. Students presented their field work experiences in terms of social work response (intervention) in the context of the COVID 19 pandemic. They presented the activities undertaken by them during their third and fourth semester field work, their observations, learning, challenges, and suggestions. Altogether 215 students including the MSW I and II years are participated in the seminar. Students from other universities and state were also participants and paper presenters for the seminar.
Apart from the paper presentations by the students, there were 5 panel discussions scheduled during the national conference on 31 August to 1 September 2021, during which resource persons from various national and international organisations, universities and departments of social work across the country presented their papers on social work response to COVID 19 pandemic.
Schedule-of-National-Seminar-24-25-August-2021 – Download
Schedule-of-National-Seminar-31-Aug-1-Sep-2021 – Download
Links-for-BPHES-CSRD-ISWR-National-conferences-24-Aug-to-1-Sep-2021 – Download