Post-Pandemic Welfare and Social Work: Re-imagining the New Normal

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a critical juncture in the development of the welfare state affirming its importance for its citizens’ economic, health and wellbeing, and safety, especially for its most vulnerable populations. It demonstrated that the crisis preparedness that is crucial for an effective protection of its citizens, the ultimate purpose of the welfare state, unquestionably exceeds the narrow horizon of a corporatised welfare industry with its singular focus on the maximisation of profit for the elites and cost containment for the government. Social workers need to engage with the contradictions and tensions that spring from underfunded welfare services and engage in the political struggle over a well-resourced welfare state. Contributors to this book take on this challenge. By tracing the various contradictions of the pandemic, the contributors reflect on new ways of thinking about welfare by exploring what to keep, what to challenge and what to change. By highlighting important challenges for a social justice-focused response as well as exploring the many challenges exposed by the pandemic facing social work for the coming decades, contributors critically outline pathways in social work that might contribute to the shaping of a less cruel and more capable welfare state. Using case-studies from Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia, Italy, Slovenia, Estonia, Sweden, Spain, South Africa, Canada, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, China and the United States, the book features 19 chapters by leading experts. This book will be of interest to all social work scholars, students and practitioners, as well as those working in social policy and health more broadly.

Table of Contents:
1.Post-Pandemic Social Work and the Welfare State. 2.Communovirus: Ethical community for social work in a ‘post’ COVID world. 3.The Modern Welfare State and the Post-Pandemic World. 4.Post-Pandemic Social Work and The Death of Neo-liberalism. 5.Social Work in the Post-COVID State: Emancipatory or the Long Arm of the Control and Coercion. 6.The convergence between neoliberalism and digital technology: Awakening individual and societal consciousness for a sustainable, resilient and just post-pandemic world. 7.Is The Genie Out of The Bottle? Societal and Political Implications of Domestic Military Deployments During the Covid-19 Pandemic. 8.Feminist Response to COVID-19: Is it time for feminist social policies? 9.Disrupting Masculinism in Public Policy Responses to COVID-19 - Unmasking the Gendered Dimensions of the Pandemic. 10.Re-imagining the Place for Social Work in the Post-Pandemic Welfare: Lessons from the Italian Experience. 11.More Trouble in a Welfare Paradise: Sweden’s Problematic Welfare Policy and Practice Response to the Pandemic. 12.Multidimensional, multicultural and inclusive approaches to social welfare in post-pandemic Australia. 13.Grassroots Solidarity in Social Work: Strengthening the Welfare State beyond COVID-19 through Social Impact in the field of Child Abuse. 14.The silencing of social workers during COVID-19 emergency measures: an assessment. 15.Examining China’s response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflections of social workers from the field. 16.Welfare policy statements during the mega-crisis: challenges for Estonia. 17.A Moment of Fuzziness: Connections between shifting notions of ‘home’ and welfare arrangements ‘back home’ for Black Zimbabwean migrants living under Covid 19 travel restrictions in Australia. 18.Covid in Black Australia. 19.Covid-19 and the Welfare State - Social Work’s Practice and Policy.