ForewordIn 2020, Pierre Mazet and François Sorin, following a survey of 200 professionals in the field of social work, pointed to the " disturbances imported into the professionalism of social workers by the demand for digital assistance (...) and by the obligation of connectivity imposed on public service users by dematerialization. (...) " They thus find themselves forced to take charge of a new dimension, one that is de facto unavoidable if they are to be able to carry out their missions of access and support towards rights, but one that has not, more often than not, been the subject of any clear definition on the part of their institution".The Livre Blanc du Travail Social (White Paper on Social Work ) describes an unprecedented crisis in social work, with serious recruitment difficulties, staff turnover and a lack of interest in training among the younger generation. Digital technology is no stranger to this loss of meaning and attractiveness, generating "sometimes uncontrolled processes, a source of additional workload".The relationships, articulations and complementarity between the professions of social mediation and those of digital mediation are at the heart of the reflections in a dossier in Sociographe magazine, as well as in the contributions of the members of a collective called Lost in mediation.The task of social work professionals, originally focused on problem-solving and decision-making involving precise professional knowledge, now involves providing a service largely centred on technical support.Steve Jacob and Seima Souissi conclude this dossier with a review of the international literature.
The unprecedented crisis in social work: what role can digital technology play?The White Paper on Social Work (314 pages), submitted to the French government by the Haut Conseil du Travail Social (HCTS) on December 5, 2023, takes stock of an unprecedented crisis in social work: serious recruitment difficulties, staff turnover, disaffection with training among the younger generation. "This deterioration is a warning of the state of emergency affecting the sector. It is also leading to a decline in the quality of support and services provided to the public.While digital technology is "a working tool with many potentialities ", the dematerialization of administrative procedures contributes to this loss of meaning and attractiveness, by generating "sometimes uncontrolled processes, a source of additional workload".Following on from the HCTS's work on digital transformations in professional practices in the social professions (Why and how social workers are seizing digital tools in 2018), the White Paper looks at digital from three angles:The difficulties of supporting people in a context of dematerialization ;The growing importance of reporting activities for social workers;The foreseeable upheavals in the social professions linked to the development of Artificial Intelligence.Following in the footsteps of the Défenseur des droits, the HCTS advocates maintaining physical counters alongside digital services. "People experiencing difficulties with the dematerialization of administrative procedures need to be supported and accompanied. They need a relationship that is above all human, understanding and non-judgmental. Training courses for digital helpers, who are invited to work with social action professionals, also include the relational dimension of assistance and the assessment of requests".Read more: Unprecedented crisis in social work: what role can digital technology play?
What digital technology is doing to the social support relationshipUnder the title " Numérique et travail social" (" Digital and social work"), the magazine Sociographe, which specializes in social work research, devotes a dossier to developments in the socio-educational support relationship, which is increasingly articulated "with the most common as well as the most sophisticated digital tools, with numerous innovations in the various fields of social work: dematerialized support platforms, digital safes, professional use of social networks, assistance robots..."."In his introduction, Alexis Mombelet, sociologist and trainer at the Institut Régional du Travail Social (IRTS), explains: "New ways of entering into relationships, new forms of social support and educational mediation that need to be understood and questioned.François Sorin, associate researcher at CREAD (Université Rennes 2), looks back at the definition of digital technology in its material dimension, but also as a culture that conjures up imaginations that intermingle and oppose the value of access ("digital technology would be the answer to all our problems") and deep concerns (" digital technology would invariably lead us to the dissolution of social interactions "). Support practices in, with and about the digital world cannot be reduced to the use of "the digital tool" without risking the invisibility of the logics and issues at stake.Based on a review of the literature, three Canadian authorss, Ariane Sisavath, a professional social worker in social pediatrics, and Josée and Mélanie Bourque, professors in the Department of Social Work at the Université de Québec, take stock of the use of NICTs in the health and social services system, and raise three issues for both clients and professionals: the digital divide, the confidentiality of information gathered, and " professional autonomy in the face of decision-support systems that are gradually taking over social action".Vincent Meyer, professor of information and communication sciences at the Université Côte d'Azur, takes a close look at the new logics of care that are taking shape, to the point of asking "whether algorithms are going to replace social workers". Having "lifted the veil " on the " digital accommodations" that professionals and users are making on a daily basis, connected willy-nilly, the author sets out a series of milestones to guide professionals "to engage in a controversy on digital inclusion versus the social acceptability of technologies for their audiences and in their practices".In his contribution, Didier Dubasque, former president of the Association nationale des assistants de service social (ANAS), returns to the question of access to rights "which now involves the use of digital platforms, synonymous with empowerment for some, but also with loss of autonomy for a significant proportion of the French population, who are far from the appropriate tools and knowledge". While this new form of exclusion is leading government departments to try and find solutions, such as the France Service centers, "these cannot meet all the demands. The new professions created by these structures in no way detract from the need for social workers to adapt to these tools, while continuing to give meaning to their actions"."Social support, historically a face-to-face relationship, is tending to develop into a remote practice. What role does digital technology play in this phenomenon: cause, means or hindrance? Vanessa Andriet, a social service assistant, talks about her remote support practice in the healthcare field. In the absence of face-to-face contact, she points out "what makes it possible to establish a relationship with the other person by telephone and videoconference, so that remote social support is meaningful for everyone".Specialized educator Nicolas Plantegenet and François Melou, PhD in psychology, examine the growing role of digital technology in the support provided to educators working in children's social care homes (MECS): the use of social networks, the blurring of the boundary between private and professional life. The risk of " endless connection " and the hybridization of their practices require professionals to reflect on "extending the domain of their ethic of responsibility"."From a social work perspective, the practices of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft (GAFAM) appear irreconcilable with the ethical practice of our sector. The GAFAMs, often described as the world's most influential brands, have shaped our times by inventing products and lifestyles. Their business model is based on the exploitation of personal data, analyzing all our online activities to predict and influence our behavior". Morgane Quilliou-Rioual, independent trainer on digital practices in social work and specialized educator, draws on this dual experience to question respect for the "digital security" of the people she accompanies, particularly in relation to GAFAM."We hear every day about cyberattacks, the attention economy and GAFAM. Isn't it time for our sectors to take a closer look at these issues? Digital technology and its tools are part of our working environment. We use them without questioning their uses and the consequences for the people we support. Morgane Quilliou-Rioual, an independent trainer on digital practices in social work and a specialized educator, draws on this dual experience to question respect for the "digital security" of supported people in connection with the General Data Protection Regulation (RGPD) and GAFAM in particular."It's not a question of giving in to technocratic injunctions and digital sirens, of disrupting to prove our professionalism, our technicality, our modernity. Nor is it a question of responding to a public desire to put ourselves at the service of the digitization of the world, to alleviate illiteracy, to train people in digital tools, to educate them in their proper use. Digital tools are welcome, but they are only tools that we need to adapt to our needs. Today, it seems that the opposite is true. We have to constantly update ourselves, just like our computer systems. It's a never-ending race. Gauthier Steyer, a specialized educator at the Aide Sociale à l'Enfance in La Réunion, talks about his day-to-day work, and the many situations in which the use of digital tools gets in the way of a helping relationship. " We could start by setting an example, by giving up our screens, our apps and our software, and focusing all our attention on our fellow human beings.A day center is a place where homeless people can find themselves on the front line of the digital inequalities from which the vast majority of those they serve suffer. In a study focusing on the homeless, François Melou, PhD in psychology, Camille Pinsault, a student at ITS, and Frederic Gontrand, director of a day center, draw up an unvarnished assessment of digital technology as an "aggravating factor of exclusion". "The most vulnerable are once again the biggest losers as we enter the digital age, with e-excluded people seeing social inequalities widen"."The social work ecosystem is being industrialized ", says Jonathan Louli, social worker, sociologist, anthropologist and social work trainer. In his contribution, he examines how digital uses contribute to this industrialization: instrumentalization of sectors, formatting of practices, proletarianization of workers.Léo Lebrun, trainer at IRTS PACA, concludes this dossier by pointing out the "Kafkaesque malaise induced by a world without contact and the coldness of computer procedures". "We may be overlooking how the digitization of society makes the world unbearable from the point of view of subjectivity".
"Lost in mediation ": Is digital mediation soluble in social mediation?This was the question posed by Yann Vandeputte, a field player for a dozen years in the voluntary sector, then as a training engineer, to players in the fields of digital mediation, social mediation, social work and sociology. The challenge was "to question digital mediation in relation to other fields, other players who surround it, cross paths with it, spur it on or simply ignore it, out of sheer ignorance or kind condescension". Around this question and the answers proposed by professionals or former practitioners from the associative and institutional world, the Lost in Mediation collective took shape, made up of professionals or former practitioners from the associative and institutional world.In "Allons-nous vers un unique métier de la médiation numérique et sociale? ", Didier Dubasque, who has been involved in social work for over thirty years, observes a form of convergence between these two professions: " Social mediators and, more broadly, social workers are de facto led to devote a considerable amount of time to becoming digital helpers on this or that aspect of a situation with regard to the digital practices of their interlocutors. For example, it's easier for a social worker to explain to a user how to connect to the CAF website and master its intricacies than it is to direct them to a digital mediator, so that they can come back to them to deal with the administrative problem. Redirecting would be nonsense ". However, the two professions are different. "Their missions and points of entry in their relations with users are different and sufficiently specific despite the tasks they have in common (...). The multiplicity of subjects addressed by the use of digital tools justifies this difference between the two professions. Each has its own specificities. But the more recent a profession is, the more it has to prove its efficiency and legitimacy". This is the challenge facing the digital mediator. "It is through the contribution of their skills, and their ability to work in collaboration with other technical and social professions, that they will gain recognition and take their rightful place in view of their usefulness, which no longer needs to be demonstrated.In " Où est donc passée la culture numérique?" (Where has digital culture gone?), Vincent Bernard, coordinator of Bornybuzz numérique, reminds us that digital mediation tends, in principle, towards two objectives: mastery and understanding. "It's a question of both technical and cultural appropriation. This plural approach is also reflected in the notion of digital literacy: "more than just technological know-how, it includes a wide variety of ethical, social and reflective practices that are integrated into work, learning, leisure and daily life ". According to Vincent Bernard, the notion of digital inclusion leads to "a restriction of digital mediation, since it is no longer a question of understanding but only of skills (...): in the end, it's only a question of knowing how to use tools. Digital technology is reduced to its interface dimension, where the user is seen as an operator who must know how to make a request, fill in a field and validate a form". Culture and literacy disappear " in favor of an exclusively operative and technical dimension". " Yet digital technology must not be seen as a black box, and the Internet user/citizen cannot simply be seen as a button-presser. "An in-depth digital culture, acquired through education and experience, supported by a deep reflection on our objectives as individuals and as a society, will not happen ", concludes the author, "without digital mediation professionals trained in this issue".In " Médiation sociale et médiation numérique: solubilité ou symbiose? ", Garlann Nizon, project manager, trainer and consultant in digital inclusion, and Stéphane Gardé, consultant-trainer at La Coop Num, highlight the common ground between these two professions: access to rights. However, they point to the "risk of reducing and limiting digital mediation to access to rights, to the problem of dematerialization or digitization of user relations by public service operators, and the resulting exclusions". And yet, they add, " people are not reduced to their 'rights' and 'duties': they are also built around the 'possible'. So they put forward the prospect of a symbiosis between these two professions: "reciprocally profitable (...) with the idea of reciprocity, the possibilities of collaborations, co-constructions, cooperations (...) Working on complementarities, the common space, requires recognizing the initial specificities and reinforcing them". " Be that as it may," concludes the author, " we will always need mediators, whose roles will of course vary greatly depending on the audience, the services and the territory. These functions cover and will continue to cover a wide range, from simple explanation to training, from adaptation to repair, from assistance to conflict management, from help to service quality".In " La translittératie numérique, objet de la médiation numérique", Corine Escobar, teacher-researcher, Nadia Oulahbib, researcher and clinical analyst of mental health work, and Amélie Turet, researcher associated with the UNESCO "Savoir Devenir" Chair, draw lessons from an experiment in school remobilization: "the merging of different types of mediation (legal, cultural, etc.) can lead to a profound alteration of one mediation in relation to the other. The experiment shows, for example, that a single mediator carrying out several mediations loses himself in his different roles and logics of action, which can degrade an effective and relevant synergy".
Social workers and digital transformation: between potential and threatened professional valuesAs in many other professions, the use of digital technologies is increasing in social work practice. From the use of instant messaging systems to the creation of databases. Even automated decision-making tools. These technologies are helping to transform the profession of social worker.Based on a review of international literature, Steve Jacob and Seima Souissi analyze the recent transformations characterizing social work in the digital age.The authors begin by taking stock of the potential offered by digital tools for social workers. This is followed by a discussion of the transformation of tasks and the technical and communicational skills required to adapt to the new work context. Finally, this state of the art looks at a series of challenges from the point of view of users, but also linked to the acceptance and appropriation of these tools by social workers.Read more : Social workers and digital transformation: between potential and threatened professional values