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The most recent Council on Social Work Education's Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) demands that social workers develop competence in the ethical and professional deployment of technology. Arguably, artificial intelligence has become a critical element in the technological landscape, most recently with the advent of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). Beginning in late 2022, there has been an explosion of interest in GenAI, along with a massive and ongoing rollout of GenAI tools for personal and professional use, such as ChatGPT. While GenAI will undoubtedly affect social work practice, scholars and ethicists have raised crucial concerns about GenAI, its potential abuses, and misuses, making it critical that social workers are trained in the proper usage of these technologies. Accordingly, we call here for a 10th competency to be added to the 2029 EPAS: Competency Ten: Social Workers demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and understanding to responsibly and effectively use Generative Artificial Intelligence tools. The current article discusses the recent developments in GenAI and offers social work educators guidance for including GenAI content in social work curricula to meet this proposed standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sought to examine the direct and indirect associations between school size and parents' perceptions of the invitations for involvement provided by their children's school in a school system that has actively attempted to reduce the negative effects of school size. Using data from the New York Public Schools' annual Learning Environment Survey, path analysis was used to examine the role that school climate plays in mediating the relationship between school size and parents' perceptions of invitations for involvement. Results from an analysis of middle and high school parents who participated in the annual school survey provided evidence that parents' perceptions of safety and of respect from the school mediated the relationship between school size and perceptions of the extent of the invitations for involvement provided by the school. The indirect effect of school size via perception of safety and respect was larger than the direct effect of school size on parents' perceptions of invitation for involvement. (Contains 3 figures and 2 tables.)

The emergence of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude offers significant potential for the social work profession. However, these LLMs are not without their ethical and practical challenges, particularly concerning the accuracy of the information provided by these models. This commentary explores the importance of developing digital literacy among social work professionals to effectively navigate the capabilities and limitations of LLMs. Through an understanding that LLMs are designed to generate human-like text outputs rather than serve as tools for information retrieval, users can align their expectations and uses of these models accordingly. The paper highlights a specific instance where ChatGPT produced inaccurate scholarly references as a clear example of a model output with factually incorrect information, an occurrence often referred to as a hallucination. The authors then describe recent technology advancements such as the integration of Internet search capability with LLMs and an approach known as retrieval-augmented generation that can enhance the ability of LLMs to provide users with more accurate and relevant information. The commentary ends with a call for concerted efforts to equip social work students, practitioners, educators, and scholars with the skills needed to use emerging AI technologies ethically and effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Therapy is now available via digital platforms brokering relationships between practitioners and clients. Licensed clinical social workers contract with direct-to-consumer digital platforms to provide tele–mental health services. We employ labor process theory (LPT) to explore the interpersonal work of therapy as a labor arrangement, arguing that the core theory of LPT is useful for analyzing the overlapping clinical and material dynamics of conducting social work in online environments. We extend LPT analyses of gig work to the behavioral health field. Although platforms attract social workers by promising autonomy, the managerial controls that platforms exert and the emotional labor that social workers perform as they care for and retain their clients both complicate the realization of such autonomy. These labor arrangements actively constrain social workers' clinical judgment and the ability to manage their workload. By restructuring the delivery of therapeutic services, digital platforms encroach on professional social work practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A century ago, Abraham Flexner offered his perspective on the nascent field of social work, describing the field as educationally unfocused, too diversified in its practices, and too relational or assistive to other fields to meet the criteria for professional status. Using the example of the imperative to integrate information and communication technologies (ICT) into social work practice, we examine the ways these 100-year-old challenges persist as well as how they are being challenged and reworked. Drawing on three central themes from Flexner--education, diversity of professional settings and functions, and the relational nature of the work--we examine the absence of ICTs in social work practice, arguing that a lack of curricular exposure to ICT tools, strategies, and thinking at the BSW and MSW levels and a failure to incorporate these technologies with clients, agencies, and communities leads to a damaging disjunction between professionals and a changing culture. We suggest that the challenge proffered to social work by technology provides a radical opportunity to create a more socially just practice, offer a preliminary list of best practices for approaching ICT integration, and make suggestions for further inquiry.

The article urges social workers to join global conversations that engage the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) including ChatGPT ad its implications and to advocate for its fair use. It discusses students' use of ChatGPT in social work education and calls for the expansion of training on the Code of Ethics regarding the use of AI at the academic and organizational levels. It also cautions about the potential implications of AI for social justice and marginalized populations.

This narrative documents the early stages of a collective called #SWEDUACTS. We are four White, female social work educators who have led the planning of a teach-in event held in October of 2020 and subsequent monthly drop-in, peer-led Professional Learning Community meetings drawing dozens of participants over nine months. We reflect here on how engaging in the planning and delivery of the drop-in sessions helps ground our commitment to anti-racist pedagogy as well as facilitates the capacity of other social work instructors to build their own capabilities as anti-racist social work pedagogues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As critical components of the aging continuum of care, senior centers promote older adult health and well-being by providing opportunities for recreation, socialization, nutrition, health education, and access to vital social services. Nationally, a vast network of 11,000 senior centers serves over four million older adults annually. As the United States population ages rapidly, public funding, which is the primary source of support for a majority of senior center services, has remained stagnant. If senior centers are to continue to effectively serve older adults and meet their comprehensive needs, they need to demonstrate their relevance to the community and advocate for increased funding support. This paper explores the policy concerns of senior center administrators, investigates their efforts to influence public policy, illustrates advocacy techniques currently utilized by them, and highlights the learning needs of administrators in this regard. Practice implications for senior centers, their constituents, and gerontological education are provided. (Contains 1 figure and 3 tables.)

Direct-to-consumer tele-mental health services—therapy delivered by video conference, email, and text message—is a burgeoning model of service delivery. The practice of on-demand digital psychotherapy presents ethical questions, as new economic models, service delivery systems, and therapeutic models are introduced. Virtual therapy, now offered on a subscription basis by third-party providers, requires users to accept Terms of Service (ToS) agreements to access services. This article describes the results of a survey in which participants (n = 579) were asked to compare the values of the Human Rights Framework with the language of one tele-mental health platform's ToS user agreement. Findings suggest that those clients with prior experience with a mental health professional will find the ToS agreements to be the most ethically compromised. Similarly, employed and better educated individuals also found the ToS to be ethically suspect. The most vulnerable of the groups we surveyed, individuals who hold less education and those who are unemployed, may be at most risk for signing consent to a system they do not understand. The study provides one example of the ethical questions that emerge from the introduction of a new model of for-profit service provision in mental health. Recommendations for consumers and practitioners are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gig economy, the sharing economy, or collaborative consumption; these are all synonyms for a technologically enhanced mechanisms for linking independent contractors with consumers for the purposes for exchanging goods and services. This business model has proliferated exponentially in the last decade and has been touted as offering freedom and increased autonomy for workers. However, as yet it seems to have had a vampire-like effect, sucking resources and protections out of the economic eco-system while only benefiting a very small group of technology platform developers and their shareholders. This new business model has given rise to ethical and moral dilemmas which question the role of government in providing the social safety net as well as regulation and policy in protecting employees from abusive labour practices as well as consumers from price gouging and other consumer protection issues including consumer safety. This paper uses the principles of the human rights framework to explore key constructs such as dignity, transparency, accountability and nondiscrimination to begin the process of creating an affirmative framework to guide policy and practice in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]