Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book critically examines how digital social work is expanding and developing across many social work fields of practice. It considers the implications for social work related to the ongoing transition to digitalized social work interventions and practices. The book demonstrates the potential of technology as a participatory medium through which individuals and communities can creatively address issues of importance in their lives. It explores how relationship-based practice, a signature feature of the social work profession, can be sustained and enhanced in the digital era. The book highlights how new technologies can support and sustain possibilities for networked communities, new public digital spaces and other forms of community-related connections. It sets out the possibilities that technology offers for collective action and the potential of fostering what they describe as local-global connections between local initiatives and global social movements.