Social Work 400: Social Problems and Social Work Today

This undergraduate elective course familiarized students with the profession of social work and recruited undergraduate students into the school's MSW program. The course provided an overview of the social context for the kinds of roles, interventions.

Impact of COVID on Marginalized Populations

  1. Understanding the Social Worker Experience with Organizational Changes in HSOs During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Published in:Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, Jan/Feb2025,Social Sciences Abstracts (H.W. Wilson)

By:Reyes, José L.;Cederbaum, Julie A.;de Saxe Zerden, Lisa;Zelnick, Jennifer R.;Ross, Abigail M.

Drawing on Lewin's three-stage change theory (i.e. unfreezing, changing, and refreezing), this study explored social workers' experience with organizational changes in human service organizations during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative content analysis was conducted using secondary data from a cross-sectional survey (June–August 2020). Responses for 2447 participants (78.5%) who answered the open-ended question, "How have services, functions or operations changed in response to COVID-19?" were thematically coded. Four overarching themes were identified and discussed: ( 1 ) changes to organization capacity; ( 2 ) technology/infrastructure and workers arrangements; ( 3 ) workplace safety; and ( 4 ) impact on clients and workers.

Keywords: COVID-19; frontline workers; Lewin's change theory; organizational change; social work

Last Updated: Dec 3, 2025 2:13 PM