Social workers make an essential contribution to society, both to individuals and to the communities that need them most. And when you wear many hats – as an advisor, support provider, and advocate – work can get very hectic.f
It’s why many professionals are beginning to embrace social work apps and software as a way to help others effectively while keeping all those balls in the air. This article will show you how the right app can help you make a bigger positive impact and reach those you help with ease and efficacy.
Before you read on, we think you’ll love our 30-day trial of Quenza. Quenza is our specialized social work app to help you upgrade your professional practice, and will give you all the tools to augment your impact while helping your clients wherever you are.
How To Perform Online Social Work
Digital tools can be incredibly valuable additions to a social worker’s toolkit, enhancing both your professional practice and the degree to which you empower others.
Whether you use them to interact directly with others, or as a way to organize your materials, social work apps and software are capable of performing several functions.
Among other things, for instance, they can help you:
- Design resources, like informative frameworks and models, educational handouts, pamphlets, worksheets
- Share your materials with relevant communities and individuals, even improving your reach with certain demographics such as young adults
- Build engagement with those you help, e.g. using multimedia in your programs or creating online therapy games
- Stay in more frequent touch with clients, even improve your communication with hard-to-reach individuals through virtual channels like instant messaging
- Develop and implement outreach programs to educate, inform, and empower communities
- Monitor your clients’ wellbeing with digital assessments, or interactive tools like mood trackers, behavior diaries, and habit journals
- Counsel or coach individuals and groups with customized or personalized activities, interventions, and exercises, and even
- Keep your client information organized in one centralized, convenient, and secure online system.
9 Benefits of Using Digital Social Work Tools
Social work apps can play a critical role in reducing social inequalities by making your resources and services more widely available.
In professions that revolve around relationships, such as counseling, therapy, and social work, it’s not unusual for first-time practitioners to worry that technology will detract from, rather than adding their human interactions.
When the right apps are used properly, however, digital social work tools can have the opposite effect.
The key to using social work apps to enhance your impact, experts argue, is to appreciate them for what they are – tools to augment and enhance your practice, rather than a replacement for your client relationships.
According to a study by Papouli and colleagues, online platforms can be a vital way for you to help clients:[1][2]
- Access peer support or feel less isolated, for example, when you create virtual discussion or support groups
- Manage mental health conditions or cope with social difficulties, e.g. when you offer e-counseling, or connect them with psychosocial support and resources
- Augment or support their development when you organize online classes or provide self-paced e-courses
- Improve their physical wellbeing, for instance, when you provide self-management interventions and tools, and
- Get more involved with communities, e.g. by promoting volunteer or outreach activities with programs.
From a bigger picture perspective, social work apps can also play a critical role in reducing social inequalities, by making your resources and services more widely available.
Not only are they more easily available to clients in remote locations, which can be a key limiting factor for face-to-face visits, but social work apps also have a few practical benefits.
Alongside personal interactions, they can be:
- Affordable: Allowing your clients to get help without transport costs or time off work
- Convenient: Digital meetings are quicker for clients to attend, and a more efficient way for you to meet several clients back to back
- Engaging: For children, teenagers, and young adults especially, social work apps can be a novel and fun experience
- Organized: By collecting data for you, and keeping it together without any of the stress of paper client files.
For more on the value of digital tools for social workers, read our article Social Workers Toolbox: 6 Best Interventions & Software.
Best App and Software For Social Workers
The ability to accomplish your core tasks from a digital device is convenient, especially for busy support workers, counselors, and advisors who are often on the move.
If you’re looking for a social work software solution that can work for you and enhance your practice, Quenza is a great all-in-one toolbox for the job.
Designed especially for helping professionals, Quenza’s tools were developed to help you stay organized, communicate with clients, and support those in the societies you serve.
6 Ways Quenza’s Toolbox Can Help You
Check out this table for a little look at 6 ways Quenza’s features and tools will work for you.
Quenza’s Tool/Feature | Why It Helps | Use It To… |
|---|---|---|
Activity Builder | Your custom form and content creation tool, speeding up your resource prep by helping you craft digital documents and activities. |
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Pathway Tools | Your tool for implementing entire digital campaigns, e-courses, outreach programs, classes, and care pathways |
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Quenza Chat | Live, private instant messaging with clients in your Quenza social work app.
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Client Portal | Your clients’ free, multilingual social work app for Android and Apple – an all-in-one portal for interacting with you and your resources |
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Expansion Library | A free library of customizable pre-made Activity and Pathway templates to simplify your resource prep. |
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Results Tracking | Your real-time results tracker, helping you stay organized and informed by collecting client form data and Activity results. |
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A Look At 5 Unique Resources in Quenza
Quenza’s tools and features make it simple to craft fully personalized resources for those you help, whether that’s socially isolated individuals or marginalized communities.
Your Activity Builder is a great way to design digital copies of your paper-based client handouts or even craft new, multimedia-rich assessments and worksheets from the ground up.
You can use your Pathways tool to create entire campaigns, outreach programs, or even use Quenza as online learning software by developing your own e-courses or group workshops, and let others know where they can access the much-needed support when you’re not available.
But one particularly useful tool for busy social workers is Quenza’s Expansion Library; as we’ve seen in the table above, customizing Quenza’s pre-made Activities can be a great way to hit the ground running.
Why not try personalizing mental health or coaching templates like these examples to include in your handouts?
- Learning to Say ‘No’: An informational resource that helps clients see the value in saying ‘no,’ and how they can do so
- Gratitude in Romantic Relationships: An intervention to help others nurture mutual fondness and admiration in domestic and intimate relationships
- Consulting the Future Self When Making Choices: A versatile decision-making guide that empowers clients
- Progressive Muscle Relaxation: A deep relaxation technique for reducing stress, ideal as a self-help resource
- The Best Possible Resilient Self: This helps others overcome personal challenges by developing optimism and resilience.
All of these resources can be customized with your professional logo using Quenza’s white label feature, and additionally, they’re downloadable as PDFs by anyone you help from their own private portal.
Why not try them out now with your Quenza $1 trial?
Final Thoughts
As a social work professional, it’s your job to advocate social change, empower others, and equip them to thrive in their own environments. Social work apps will never be a replacement for the valuable work you do, but they can certainly broaden your reach and deepen your impact.
As you embrace technology to enrich that human experience, do let us know how you plan to use Quenza in your work.
We hope you enjoyed reading this article. To start enhancing your own professional impact, don’t forget to start your $1 trial for 30 days of unlimited access to all of Quenza’s digital social work tools.
Our social work app will improve the way you support others, and give you everything you need to empower, inform, and connect with your clients from any location.
References
- ^ Mclaughlin, H., Scholar, H., & Teater, B. (2020). Social work education in a global pandemic: strategies, reflections, and challenges. Social Work Education, 39(8), 975.
- ^ Papouli, E., Chatzifotiou, S., & Tsairidis, C. (2020). The use of digital technology at home during the COVID-19 outbreak: Views of social work students in Greece. Social Work Education, 39(8), 1107-1115.
