Julkaisut
|
English abstract
Electronic consultancy (e-consultancy) has turned out to be an effective and flexible way to support the work of social work professionals. Specialised knowledge can be spread and accessed online around the clock and regardless of geographic location. Professionals can turn to e-consultancy if no other ways of support are available in their immediate work environment or if they encounter a particularly difficult situation in their work and would like to have outside advice. The underlying idea of providing guidance online is to support social workers particularly in small municipalities who need to face the challenges of their work alone.
This report describes and compares a number of e-consultancy services that have been constructed in the social work sector since the early 2000s. Most of the models of e-consultancy have been created in the context of an eConsultancy project implemented in the social sector. The ‘Virkku’ online forum has offered regional peer consultancy to support social workers in the Tampere area. The eConsultancy provided by the A-Clinic Foundation through its AddictionLink website not only provides counselling to customers but also answers professionals’ questions about alcohol, drugs and addiction. The ‘Seutuneuvonta’ service offered by the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities provided expert support to social and health care projects and promoted the dissemination of action models created in the projects. The ‘Sosiaaliportti’ e-consultancy service has consultant groups that respond to questions and these responses are also published online in order to maximise the benefits. The ‘SiTi-kollega’ service maintained by the Finnish Save the Children organisation provides consultancy in difficult child welfare cases using video conferences in particular.
Although all these models make use of information technology, they differ from each other especially in their ways of information formation and their relationship to professional social work activities. The consultancy services can be divided into peer consultancy, consultancy by special experts and participatory consultancy.
In addition to describing the models of e-consultancy, the report presents the findings of an evaluation performed on the ‘Sosiaaliportti’ e-consultancy service. The first operational year of this national consultancy service in social work established that the service is necessary and that the users have been satisfied with the guidance received through the service. As the professionals have passed on the information to social work clients, the consultancy has also helped improve the legal protection of clients.
‘Sosiaaliportti’ has nearly 150 consultants that are grouped according to thematic areas. The consultant network represents a forum of sound professional expertise. The questions sent by social work professionals have been tricky and the answers have been multi-professional and well informed. The e-consultants perceive their work as stimulating and also useful for their own professional activities. In this way, they are in direct contact with social work professionals and can keep up with the situation on the ground.
The e-consultancy in social work not only offers support to professionals but also helps create and develop information structures and promote the utilisation of relevant special expertise. Different types of consultancy services should be developed further and integrated so as to further improve the availability of special expertise and users’ access to the services. Professional consultancy can also be developed towards citizen consultancy. The significance of online services, such as counselling channels, will increase with worsening labour shortage and the general developments in the information society.
Tulosta
|
Lähetä tiedoksi
Julkaistu 27.2.2008, Päivitetty 9.4.2008
| |