Over the last three years, the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged universities and county human service agencies in unprecedented ways while magnifying existing inequities across the globe. Students, faculty, staff, and clients experienced profound losses and disruptions to daily life while continuing to provide critical services, care for loved ones, and engage in online and hybrid learning.
Across California and within the Bay Area, university and agency partners involved with the California Social Work Education Center (CalSWEC) and the Bay Area Social Services Consortium (BASSC) met frequently to share their experiences, co-create strategies to meet community needs, and engage in constructive dialogue regarding existing practices and future directions.
This report is an effort to synthesize information from these sessions, including lessons learned, remaining questions, and potential strategies for the future.
This synthesis is informed by data collected from: 1) CalSWEC Advisory Board and Capacity Building & Planning Committee meeting minutes, 2) CalSWEC COVID 2.0 Ad Hoc committee meeting minutes, 3) coded Zoom transcripts and meeting minutes from BASSC CIE sessions, 4) BASSC county partner presentations, 5) key informant interviews with CalSWEC university and county human service agency partners, and 6) iterative feedback from both CalSWEC and BASSC university and agency stakeholders. This report summarizes central themes and commonalities found across these discussions while highlighting innovative strategies and enduring questions proposed by university and agency partners.
