1. Social media in social work education: devising a social media strategy
Joanne Westwood
Programme Director:
Social Work Qualifying Programmes:
School of Applied Social Science

2. What is social media?

3. Who uses social media?
Young people: the trend in developing countries is upwards, despite the digital divide (Lafferty 2015).
Smart device ownership is on the increase, over laptop and PC’s (GWI 2014)
Democratising potential (Ali 2012)
Campaigning and awareness raising: social justice and global human rights (Brady, Young and McLeod)
Social work practice:
MOMO (Fursland 2014)
Whose shoes (2015)

4. Social media and social work: barriers, tensions and opportunities
Establish: What type of user are you (White and Le Cornu 2011)
Individual: concern about workload, always connected, information overload, boundaries, privacy, speed of exchanges and changes in social media platforms, (Bucher et al 2012) online/offline identity (Miller 2013)
Organisational: managing the changes in how we communicate and interact with service users, confidentiality, data protection
Cultural: Resistance, mistrust and reputation management are obstacles which affect development and growth of social media (BDO 2013)
Driver: Students are sophisticated users of social media for their learning and development (Westwood, Taylor and McKendrick 2014)

5. Why should social work educators engage with social media?
Campaigning and awareness raising
Don't take social work training away from universities
Engaging beyond the classroom
The Use of Book Groups in Social Work Education
Ethical dilemmas in practice
The Social Work Social Media App

6. Developing the strategy
Engaging with academics
Establishing a baseline of where we are in terms of using social media
What type of users are students? Academics? (White and Le Cornu 2011)
Developing approaches based on evidence
Supporting individuals development and implementation of social media
Integration in teaching and learning
Enhancing the student experience
Student employability

7. Social media in the School of Social Science 1
Collaboration
Phase 1: Engaging with academics
Funding (Teaching development fund)
Survey of staff use of social media, digital technology and VLE
Seminar: open to all staff and research students
Social Media Surgery
Research away day
Report and publication/dissemination

8. Social media in the School of Social Science 2
Phase 2
Funding: SELF (Student Enhancement Leaning Fund)
Developing online module (optional) for final year students
Social Media profile: review and rational
Engaging with employers
Encouraging students to develop professional online profile

9. Key issues to consider when developing social media strategy for social work education
Global, permanent
Professional value base:
Professional/personal boundaries

10. Questions

11. Bibliography
Ali, A.H. (2012) The Power of Social Media in Developing Nations: New Tools for Closing the Global Digital Divide and Beyond. Harvard Human Rights Journal. Vol BASW (2012) Social Media Policy. BDO (2013) BDO (2013) Following the trends. Results from the 2013 BDO Local Government Social Media Survey – today’s trends and making the most of the medium Brady, S.R., Young, J., and McLeod, D.A. (2015) Utilizing digital advocacy in Community Organizing: Lessons learned from organizing in virtual spaces to promote worker rights and economic justice. Journal of Community Practice Volume 23, Issue 2, Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), Bucher, E., Fieseler, C., & Suphan, A., (2013) The stress potential of social media in the workplace. Information, Communication & Society Vol. 16, No. 10, December 2013, pp. 1639–1667 GWI (2014) Global Device Summary Q3.Available at: URL Fursland (2014) The IT Crowd: How technology is helping children in care. Children and Young People Now- Special report Technology in Care. Lafferty, J. (2015) Social Times : Young People More Likely to Use Social Media in Developing Countries

12. Bibiography
Miller, D., (2013) Future Identities: Changing identities in the UK – the next 10 years: What is the relationship between identities that people construct, express and consume online and those offline? Government office for Science. Singh Cooner, T. (2014) Using closed Facebook groups to teach social work skills, values and approaches for social media. In (ed) Westwood, J. (2014) Social Media in Social Work Education. Critical Publishing. Stevenson, D. (2014) Developing your social media presence: A guide to utilising social media tools for foster care recruitment. The Fostering Network. White, D.A. and Le Cornu, A (2011) Visitors and Residents: A New Typology for online Engagement: First Monday 16 Westwood, J., (2014a) Social Media in Social Work Education. Critical Publishing. Westwood, J. Taylor, A. and Mckendrick, D. (2014) Student social workers use of social media: findings from a cross national survey. In (ed) Westwood, J., Social Media in Social Work Education. Critical Publishing. Whose Shoes? (2015)