How are you coping with working through Covid?

Are you a social worker or social care worker who is currently employed or self-employed (or working for an agency) within any area of practice in the UK? We want to understand more about your quality of working life and coping in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic.

So far, we have received over 10,000 responses to our three earlier surveys, exploring the health and wellbeing of nurses, midwives, allied health professionals, social care workers and social workers in UK during the pandemic. These have found that social workers’ wellbeing and wellbeing have decreased over the course of the pandemic. You can read an overview of our findings here.

But we want to know what is happening now.

Our fourth survey began on 24 November 2021 and will stay open until 4 February 2022. You don’t have to have taken part previously to respond. It is completely confidential.

To take part, please scan the QR code or access the survey questionnaire, and further information, here. It will take 15 minutes to complete.

At the end of the survey, there is the opportunity to leave your details if you would like to take part in online focus groups, which will take place in January/February 2022, or you can email, Patricia Gillen on p.gillen@ulster.ac.uk or the research team on hscworkforcestudy@gmail.com to do so. Please consider taking part as we would like to further explore the findings from the survey with health and social care frontline workers, managers and human resource teams.

About the research

Phase 1 research was funded by seed funding from the Northern Ireland Social Care Council  (NISCC) and the Southern Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland. Phase 2 onwards was funded by the HSC Public Health Agency Northern Ireland, and the NIHR Policy Research Programme grant to the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce at King’s College London (grant number NIHR PR-PRU-1217-21002). In addition, employers, professional regulators, associations and workplace unions including the Northern Ireland Practice and Education Council for Nursing and Midwifery, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Midwives, Royal College of Occupational Therapists, British Dental Association, College of Podiatry, NISCC. Scottish Social Services Council and Social Care Wales are helping to get the survey to potential participants. Community Care has helped with dissemination to social workers UK wide. Sincere thanks to our funders and partners for their support with this research.