Social Work England probes AI’s impact on profession
Mark Topps
Social Care Leader l Regional Business Manager | Co-Founder of The Caring View | Blogger | Award-Winning Care Mentor for Business Development, Mental Health, and Work-Life Balance
Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to develop quickly and is becoming increasingly prevalent in social work and Social Work England have said that they need to understand the challenges and opportunities AI presents to social workers, social work employers and social work education providers, as well as its potential impacts on public safety, public confidence and public trust in the social work profession.
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Prior to this commissioned research, adult social care professionals have reported that using an artificial intelligence (AI) tool saved them time and improved direct work, despite some concerns over accuracy.
Research commissioned by Beam AI , the company behind the Magic Notes tool, found practitioners reported reduced time spent on case recording and assessments, enhanced engagement with people they supported, and improved quality of supervision meetings.
However, concerns were raised over inaccuracies and assumptions in the summaries and scripts, requiring practitioners to make, sometimes time-consuming edits.
Magic Notes is currently being used by 85 councils in the UK and records meetings and generates a transcript, summary and suggested actions based on council-agreed prompts.
The evaluation, produced by Rob Procter and Stanislav Zhydkov of AI research body the The Alan Turing Institute , was based on analysis of usage by, and feedback from, 91 staff in three councils in England collected during a trial of the tool between April and September 2024. Researchers also carried out in-depth interviews with 11 of the social care professionals, six of whom were social workers with one to six years’ experience.
Staff from the three authorities – Swindon, Barnet, and Camden – gave an average feedback rating of 4.26 out of 5.
Research
To support their understanding of AI, Social Work England have commissioned 2 pieces of research into the use of AI in social work education and practice. One is a literature review. The other involves direct engagement with social workers, social work employers and social work education providers. The purpose of the research is to help them understand more about (all of the following):
Discussions with the sector
To complement their research, the team hosted an initial discussion with a broad range of sector leaders to consider the use of AI in social work. Together they discussed:
They will continue to facilitate conversation in the coming months but can read more here
Note: I am not re-inventing the wheel but sharing articles and content to help raise awareness of AI within the Health and Social care sector.
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Experienced Operations and Home Manager - all my views are my own and in no way represent that of any employer or organisations I may be a member of
2 天前Anyone who subscribes to Microsoft suite of applications will observe that AI is now embedded within all major apps such as Word and Excel. Very handy for report writing and data manipulation. Apps such as Otter (many others available)which is a meeting transcription service which uses AI and will even attend meetings in your absence has been available for a while. Many of us within the private sector use these apps and more and have been doing so for a while. Frankly AI, will lead to another industrial revolution type scenario. Only this week HSBC announced the loss of 4000 jobs due to advances in AI, with the creation of 1000 positions to manage the AI. I’m glad to see SW England getting involved, I personally think it should have been sooner, but the important thing is getting involved and having a say in directing the safe oversight of developing AI within the sector.