The End and the Beginning: The Third Workshop for Preparing the Final Presentation

At 3:40 pm (GMT+8) on July 16th, the students of Group A finished their exciting and interesting Lecture 8 & Lecture 9. After a short break, they devoted themselves to the study and discussion of the third workshop.

Before the event officially started, the moderator, Dr. Yanyan Sun, first introduced the objectives, tasks, and two stages of this workshop: one is to withdraw from the experience of different countries and regions, the group members share different policies and related topics; the other is each group determine the content, format, and speaker of the final student presentation. Immediately after the screen transition, the technical staff of Microsoft Teams invited all the students to enter their subgroup meeting room. Everyone carried out a subgroup video conference on the goals and tasks of this workshop.

In Subgroup 1, everyone has established a good communication atmosphere. They are concerned that during the COVID-19 pandemic, “social anxiety” has gradually become a social issue worthy of attention. Keila from Western Sydney University mentioned that “social anxiety” is mainly caused by people's uncertainty about strange events during the epidemic. At the same time, Xia Yutian from CUHK believes that the homeless in Hong Kong also showed an increasing trend during the latest COVID-19 epidemic.

The team members of Subgroup 2 summarized and sorted out every lecture that they had studied carefully. Everyone selected the topics they were most interested in discussing and would share this topic in the subsequent presentations.

The members of Subgroup 3 first sorted out online social work services. Finally, they focused the discussion on “digital discrimination” and at the same time using it as the topic of the presentation, including the current problems of digital discrimination, related policies, and intervention measures. Six panelists from different countries and regions will make a joint presentation on this topic.

In the discussion of Subgroup 4, the members first shared who and what they thought were the most important clients and services in their practice areas. In particular, they discussed the difficulties faced by various clients and the services the clients need during the epidemic. Wu Tian from Taiwan believes that the Coronavirus epidemic has caused more significant challenges in the lives of disabled people, and it has also brought new challenges to social work services. Ashley from Australia reminded everyone to pay attention to the possible safety problem in social work services performed online. After a series of discussions and exchanges, Subgroup 4 finally decided that the topic of the presentation was “the role of a social worker”. The members of the subgroup will work together to coordinate the presentation, which will explain the cases in Chinese mainland, Hong kong, Taiwan, Australia and India..

On the platform of Microsoft Teams, the students in Subgroup 4 Conducted video conferences on target topics in small conference rooms. Ashley and Lija first appeared in the video and greeted everyone. Kong Han sent the goals and tasks of this discussion to the chatbox for our reference in time. Due to the unstable situation of the network, Lija and Kong Han presented their ideas or opinions in the chatbox of the video conference. These conference notes can always be found in Team tools, which significantly improves the efficiency of group discussions. Online “face-to-face” communication allows students from different countries and regions to break geographical restrictions and narrow the distance between them.

Participants of the third workshop have different cultural backgrounds and professional fields, and they also have their own opinions on social work issues. After the third workshops, the students have a better understanding of social workers and their practical fields in different countries and regions . This workshop came to an end amidst the intense discussions. Let us look forward to the wonderful presentations by student subgroups during the final class next Monday!

Written by Wang Jing (MSW student, SDU)

July 17, 2021