Only because it is GVT’s business to provide technology services to the world of social services have we hesitated in the past to promote the central role that technology plays in the delivery of services to the vulnerable populations social workers serve. It has always felt a little too self-serving.

However, in the past fifteen years, technology has evolved from being one of the tools social workers use to what can only be described as the “heart of the matter”.

A surgeon and his scalpel are more than a doctor holding an instrument. They are a functional unit that can only perform their work in unison.

12 Step peer support programs are based on the idea, originally formed by the AA movement in the late 1930s, that addiction is a progressive, incurable disease lessened only by undergoing spiritual transformation and abstaining from alcohol or any addictive substance or behavior (e.g., Narconon - Gamblers Anonymous).

PTSD is a disorder in which a person has difficulty recovering after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. The condition may last months or years, with triggers that can bring back memories of the trauma accompanied by intense emotional and physical reactions.

Our Aging Population

The number of Americans ages 65 and older will more than double over the next 40 years, reaching 80 million in 2040. The number of adults ages 85 and older, the group most often needing help with basic personal care, will nearly quadruple between 2000 and 2040 due to improvements in life expectancy that have propelled the increase in the older population. Between 1900 and 1960, life expectancy at birth increased from 51 years to 74 years for men and from 58 years to 80 years for women. Life expectancy's future course is uncertain but could grow dramatically. Some experts claim that half of girls born today will live until age 100.

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in the age of telehealth. Perhaps too quickly in many cases, but most clinicians agree that without the nudge from COVID-19 they never would have encouraged the widespread use of telehealth. The coronavirus changed that in an instant, significantly accelerating the adoption of telebehavioral health services. Statewide lockdowns forced providers to find virtual means of meeting with clients and appointments were moved to the telephone and /or video chats.

Juvenile Justice caseworkers manage cases for "best case" outcomes and "case closed" status. When they are assigned a client, the case worker monitors and supports that youth from their first offense through juvenile court, detentions and residential or other out-of-home placements. The progress of a youth through the juvenile justice system is often long and arduous from intake, booking, and registration to court action, fines, detention, sentencing, probation, and residential placement. Frequently, these same youthful offenders are "cross-over" cases that have come to the attention of both child protective services and juvenile justice case workers.

The American Worker

Since the decline of the union movement and the offshoring of most manufacturing jobs to cheaper labor markets, the American worker has had a systemic labor problem. The kinds of jobs that were so plentiful in the economy after World War II are no longer available. Small one-industry towns across the country have seen their factories close and residents move to the smokestack cities.

Health care social workers who support medical professionals are reporting a dramatic increase in burnout in America's nursing community.  They say that the rapidly escalating surge in COVID-19 infections across the U.S. has caused a shortage of nurses and other front-line staff in virus hot spots that can no longer keep up with the flood of unvaccinated patients and are losing workers to burnout.

As social workers in the field of education work to help students return to the classroom during this persistent and deadly pandemic, they are finding students more traumatized and fearful than they realized. The on-again/off-again guidance coming from the adults in the room as to whether masks are required, or vaccinations are indispensable, or social distancing could do it, or if you want to protect yourself and your family just stay home, has raised the anxiety level in students and greatly diminished their trust in their elders.

On a recent call with a professor in the social work department at a large Eastern university, we asked him what he saw as the human race's most vexing social problem. His answer was fascinating and quite unexpected. Below find excerpts from that conversation.