Experiences of Digitalization in the Social Field
I have worked in the social field for over 10 years and especially with young adults and their housing. In these 10 years the digitalization has already changed the field quite a lot. Few years back we still used to meet all the new tenants before they moved into the housing company’s rental apartments. We used to go through the housing applications together face to face with the applicants, gave housing counselling there and possibly gave a housing offer on paper. All this required a lot of manual work. Now, the applicant only gets a phone call, and the housing offer is sent digitally via client information programme.
The housing process is much more efficient today, and it gives more time for the worker to give housing counselling for a bigger amount of clients, but at the same time reduces the rare chances to actually meet the clients face to face, where it is often easier for the clients to be open about their needs for help. In the future we will need more services where it is still possible for the clients to get to meet the professionals face to face. It would be very useful to have working digital channels to easily communicate with other professionals in the field, both organizations and the public social work. With working digital communication channels, the workers could learn from each other, and the client could possibly get the right help they need at the right time.
The Risks of Open Digital Society
The GDPR brought pseudonymization in social field’s organizations as a default to the life circle of client relationship. For example, at my workplace, all the data we collect make reports and statistics of our services, must be pseudonymized during the service and anonymized after the client has quit the service. It makes the work a little bit more complicated in small organizations that may not have the financial recourses for the best costumer information programmes or statistics collection programmes.
Purpose limitation and minimization of the data have also changed the work, when working with the same client for a longer period, as it is not allowed to save some information about the client’s situation, that could be very useful and important later when working with the client. In these cases, it may also affect the meetings with the client, as the worker has to possibly ask same questions all over again, to remember the whole situation, which of course is a negative side effect when the time is often very limited when meeting the clients.
I have worked with young adult’s tenancy agreements for a long time, and we used to have a problem with sending personal information via email safely. After GDPR entered into force, our small organization was also forced to change the email service’s provider to a bigger one, that was able to provide encrypted email.
Accountability shows in social field´s organizations, as detailed documentation of the data that is collected. When we used to have handwritten participant lists for events, we are no longer allowed to have these. It sets up difficulties for the workers to remember all participants or the organizations to come up with other solutions. On the other hand, it reduces the risk of human mistakes, for example losing a handwritten list, or sending a list with personal information data via email, unencrypted or to a wrong email address.
In social field, as there are many organizations that provide free services, it is good that the GDPR includes consent from the data subject. It is important that also in free services the client knows that any collected data must have the client’s consent, and the consent must be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous. It does take more time to ensure this with documents and by writing detailed documentation of the data collected, but it can also be a great start for trust in the upcoming client guidance relationship.
Chat GPT
I asked Chat GPT first a simple question: “What is youth housing?”. Chat GPT gave me a brief answer, that youth housing refers to housing solutions and services specifically designed to meet the needs of young people, typically those aged between 16 and 25, who may be facing challenges such as homelessness, unstable living conditions, or transitioning from care or foster systems. The answer sums it up very nicely, although in Finland the age range is usually 18—29.
I then asked a more specific question: “What is third sector social work in youth housing in Finland?”. I chose to add “in Finland”, because the first question gave me answer that was clearly compiled from sources from other countries, possibly mainly from the United States, where the social field is very different. This specific question gave me also a more specific answer, where Chat GPT first explained what third sector organization means and how it is separate from the public sector (government). According to Chat GBT, third sector social work in youth housing in Finland focuses on addressing social issues in innovative, community-driven, and flexible ways. I agree with that.
According to the answer, the key features of it are focus on the vulnerable youth, housing first approach, comprehensive support services, collaboration with the public services, community-based initiatives and flexibility and innovation. I am actually a little bit surprised that these key features make a very good summary to what the social field in youth housing in Finland is. Chat GBT also gave as an example of a third sector organization the head organization of where I work, so I guess that part of the answer, or even most of it, was taken from their website.
As I formulated the question into a quite specific form, I received a very good and correct answer. The problem with the Chat GPT is, that if the question is not specific enough or well formulated, it is possible to get an answer that refers to sources from different areas or regions, with different legislation and practices.
In the third sector social field, artificial intelligence has a lot of benefits. I already use it a lot when formulating texts for example to ads of our services. It can be used when some other profession’s expertise is needed, for example marketing, as our organization has no extra funding for that.
Self evaluation
The orientation material was interesting and gave a lot new to think about. When watching the presentations and reading the material, I couldn’t help but think that the social field is still way behind in the development of digitalization. Especially the smaller, non-profit organizations that don’t have the resources to invest into expensive new programmes. At the same time, I think that it gives the organizations a special chance to make innovations that may not be possible to come with elsewhere. During this learning process I became more and more interested in the cyber security, and also already thought a lot about the cyber security risks that may easily occur in my organization, and even by my own actions. I have worked most of my career after the GDPR, so I have also grown as a young employee according to it, but now I also understand why there is sometimes a gap between the younger employees and the older employees in the field, when talking about data security.
I commented these blogs:
https://blogi.savonia.fi/katisotedigiaihmettelemassa/digi-society/
Your blog provides a great overview of how digitalization has impacted the social field, especially in housing services for young adults. I particularly appreciate how you highlighted the benefits of digital tools in making processes more efficient, while also acknowledging the challenges they bring, like the reduced face-to-face interaction with clients. Your insights on GDPR and data protection were also really interesting, especially how they’ve shaped daily work in the social sector.
Best regards, Kati Lappalainen
Great thoughts! It was interesting to read your thoughts about digitalization and its impacts on the field of social services. I work in public health care and I also feel that the public health care is years behind of digitalization etc compared to many private health care organizations. But we are going forward and hopefully catch them!
You reflected well the effects of digitalization and GDPR in your work. I have also worked in the social sector, both in a municipality and private companies. GDPR brought changes to my work too. It was a good observation that smaller workplaces may have it harder to comply with GDPR’s requirements. Sometimes, in the name of information security, we need to add extra steps or precautions to our working ways. You brought a great example with pseudonymisation. I also worked in a place, where you needed to use a client’s pseudonym in certain work processes. The pseudonym always took a little while to find, so it didn’t make the work more fluent. But these things are just necessary to take care of information security.
It was interesting to read about your experiences with digitalization in the social sector. In my own perception, face-to-face interaction plays a crucial role in social work, and I had not considered how digitalization impacts your work. The effect of GDPR on social services was particularly new information for me—I simply had not thought about it before.