Rocío Muñoz Moreno

This study examines the digital competences of social services professionals in Spain, with the aim of identifying their levels and differentiated profiles based on these competences. A total of 541 professionals participated by completing a self-assessment questionnaire derived from the Spanish Digital Competence Framework, aligned with the European DigComp 2.2 framework. The instrument assessed five dimensions: information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, safety, and problem solving. Cluster analysis identified three profiles: advanced professionals, intermediate professionals, and those with a lower level of digital competence. The findings indicate that in information and data literacy (Dimension 1) basic competences are widespread, although differences emerge in more complex tasks; communication and collaboration (Dimension 2) is the strongest dimension; digital content creation (Dimension 3) and problem solving (Dimension 5) revealed significant gaps, particularly among the least proficient group; while safety (Dimension 4) reached adequate mean levels, the intermediate profile reported difficulties in digital well-being. These results underscore the need for tailored training strategies: strengthening basic competences among lower-level profiles, fostering advanced competences in intermediate profiles, and promoting digital leadership among advanced profiles. Furthermore, integrating digital health and professional resilience is crucial to reducing occupational risks and enhancing the effectiveness of social service delivery, ensuring optimal conditions for both professionals and clients.

The incorporation of digital technologies has transformed Social Work, generating new demands in terms of professional competencies. It is worth questioning whether, in contexts as sensitive as social services, the mere acquisition of instrumental mastery of these tools is sufficient to ensure safe practice. Considering that the level of proficiency with these tools is influenced by age, the aim of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis of the digital competence levels of social work professionals and students in order to contrast the skills and shortcomings of both groups. To achieve this, a quantitative methodological design was employed using questionnaires based on the European DigComp 2.2 framework. The sample included 451 professionals from Spain and 171 students from the University of Huelva, whose data were processed using statistical software (SPSS 27). The results show that students display a higher overall level of digital competence, particularly in the creation of digital content and the use of artificial intelligence tools. Professionals, on the other hand, demonstrate stronger competencies in digital security and data literacy. The findings reveal a clear complementarity between the two groups, highlighting an opportunity for mutual feedback and learning that can help combine technological efficiency with ethical responsibility and respect for human rights.

The aim of this article is to analyse the extent to which Urban Agendas (UA), as tools at the service of the Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Model (ISUDM), contribute to the development of Local Welfare Systems. In order to analyse this issue and evaluate its impact, the focus is placed on social infrastructures. In addition, this work analyses the possible differences between municipalities based on a series of key variables, such as institutional capacity, socioeconomic characteristics and political context. To achieve this objective, the methodology consisted of analysing a sample of 61 municipalities and their respective UA from a database of 146. The results have shown that variables such as institutional capacity, measured through population size and the economic capacity of the municipality seem to place greater emphasis on local welfare, through the prioritization of social infrastructures, while political ideology would not be introducing significant differences in this regard. A cluster analysis has identified two main groups: larger, wealthier cities that prioritize welfare and infrastructures, and smaller, poorer cities that do so to a lesser extent. The study concludes that, despite diverse socioeconomic and political factors, UA are generally homogeneous, influenced by national and international policies, such as the Spanish Urban Agenda (SUA), the EU Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This research highlights the homogenizing effect of national funding, which can limit local flexibility and innovation, and underlines the need for a balance between national objectives and local needs.

Introducción. La evolución tecnológica de los últimos años, especialmente tras la pandemia de COVID-19, ha transformado las relaciones sociales y, en consecuencia, la interacción entre profesionales y personas usuarias de los servicios sociales. Este artículo tiene como objetivo principal analizar las competencias digitales y el uso de herramientas tecnológicas en profesionales del sistema de Servicios Sociales (SSSS) en Andalucía. Métodos. A través de un cuestionario aplicado a 293 profesionales del ámbito social, en su mayoría mujeres de mediana edad con una trayectoria laboral consolidada, se evalúa su nivel de competencias digitales y el manejo de herramientas tecnológicas en su práctica profesional. Resultados. Los resultados obtenidos permiten identificar el grado de conocimiento del personal de servicios sociales sobre competencias y herramientas digitales en un primer análisis descriptivo. Los resultados indican que, en términos generales, el personal tiene un nivel adecuado de competencias digitales para desempeñar su labor. No obstante, los resultados reflejan que el personal de mayor edad y con mayor tiempo de antigüedad en las organizaciones, tienden a mostrar un nivel de competencias digitales más bajo. Asimismo, se identifican áreas donde se pueden mejorar, como el uso de herramientas de visualización de datos o analítica y la comprensión de licencias de uso de contenidos digitales. Discusión y conclusiones. Las conclusiones apuntan a la necesidad de seguir profundizando en esta temática para atender las áreas que muestran mayor vulnerabilidad y establecer perfiles de profesionales para optimizar la asignación de tareas, mejorar la eficiencia y garantizar que los servicios se ajusten a las necesidades cambiantes de la población usuaria en la era digital. Finalmente, el estudio reconoce ciertas limitaciones, como el posible sesgo en la autoevaluación del nivel de competencias digitales debido a la formulación del cuestionario, al estructurarse con preguntas amplias, relativamente genéricas y básicas, y a la modalidad de aplicación en línea, lo que podría haber excluido a profesionales con menor familiaridad tecnológica.

El presente artículo investiga el uso de tecnologías por profesionales de servicios sociales durante la pandemia de Covid-19, con el fin de extraer aprendizajes que ayuden a optimizar los procesos de transición tecnológica en las organizaciones. La investigación considera la tecnología como un factor psicosocial en el entorno laboral, evaluando su impacto en la salud y bienestar de las/os profesionales. Se utilizó una metodología cualitativa, basada en entrevistas semiestructuradas a profesionales del Trabajo Social en España, analizadas mediante el software Atlas.ti 23, siguiendo el procedimiento metodológico de la Teoría Fundamentada. El análisis produjo 248 códigos y 2543 citas, de las cuales se consolidaron 57 códigos a partir del código central "Uso de medios tecnológicos". Los resultados revelaron que el uso de herramientas tecnológicas durante la pandemia de Covid-19 podría mitigar el problema del exceso de documentación física, mejorar la coordinación profesional tanto interna como con otras organizaciones, y optimizar la relación de profesional-persona usuaria, entre otras. Las conclusiones permiten identificar un marco general para el diseño de estrategias que faciliten la transición tecnológica en las organizaciones de servicios sociales, asegurando que las innovaciones tecnológicas no solo mejoren los procesos laborales, sino que también incrementen la calidad de vida de las/os profesionales de las organizaciones.

Introduction. The COVID-19 pandemic shed light on the weaknesses of social services directed towards the most vulnerable populations. A robust social services framework is, thus, necessary to mitigate the impact of the crisis. In this work, a resilience index is advanced based on the capacities of social services to buffer and alleviate the adverse effects of crises, including the recent pandemic. Thus, the study’s objective was to create a resilience index based on accessible data to assess the extent to which Andalusia’s social services were capable of mitigating the effects of the pandemic. Methodology. A novel methodology, the HVCRA (Hazard, Vulnerability, Risk, and Capacity Analysis), is introduced in this paper. Though traditionally used to assess natural disasters, HVCRA was applied here to gauge the pandemic's impact on social services. To develop the index, expert validation was conducted through the Delphi method, stakeholder evaluation, and the calculation of pre- and post-pandemic resilience indices for municipalities in Andalusia (an autonomous region in southern Spain). Results. The study unfolded in three phases: identification of resilience indicators, data selection, and index calculation. High modal values were obtained with the Delphi method, and significant variables were identified in stakeholder focus groups. The applicability of the final index, reduced to 17 indicators, could be improved through ongoing contextualisation efforts. Discussion. Critical indicators to assess social service resilience were put forward, in line with the research conducted by Kruk et al. who propose a resilience index for healthcare. Structural indicators, such as budget allocation and personnel, play pivotal roles, though data availability challenges persist, particularly in municipalities with over 20,000 inhabitants. Despite the study’s limitations, the proposed indicators are promising in terms of offering a comprehensive resilience assessment method directed towards community social service systems. Conclusions. The study establishes a robust framework for evaluating community social service resilience, although data accessibility remains a challenge. While acknowledging the study’s limitations, the proposed indicators lay the groundwork for attaining a comprehensive evaluation in the future, underscoring the imperative of addressing data availability in order to achieve a more nuanced assessment of social service resilience.

The pandemic caused by covid-19 has revealed an enormous vulnerability in health, economic and social terms. We are facing a new unprecedented environmental and socioeconomic reality, which poses a challenge for risk control and management. This forces a methodological effort to be made in all areas in the creation of models for the prevention and prediction of existing impacts, risks, and potential threats. In Social Services’ field, we propose a tool that will allow, on the one hand, to measure the impact of COVID-19 on the Social Services system and, on the other hand, to evaluate the areas with the highest socioeconomic risk in the post-COVID scenario. The modified Delphi technique has been used to reach a consensus on a proposal of 37 indicators with a group of experts, which in the final phase resulted in 34. To our knowledge, this represents the first risk assessment tool in social services designed specifically for use at local level. The proposed tool can help determine the situation of municipal social services in relation to risk, assessing weaknesses and improving the capacity of the system.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a decisive impact on our society, generating both direct and indirect effects in a multitude of dimensions, beyond the purely health-related, which have conditioned people’s well-being and quality of life. The social services system has played an essential role in absorbing the consequences of these impacts on the most socially vulnerable population. Analysing the social impacts and monitoring the risks derived from the pandemic can favour the prevention of risk situations, adjust the resources of the social services system to changing social realities and facilitate the strategic decision-making process to mitigate or minimise the impacts of potential socio-annual crises or catastrophes. This article presents a methodological process, based on the HCVRA (Hazards, Capacity Building, Vulnerability, Risk Assessment) disaster management models, designed ad hoc with the aim of identifying, on the one hand, the social impacts of COVID-19 and, on the other hand, the areas with the highest social risk in the post-COVID scenario. The application of this methodological process has made it possible to configure a set of indicators based on public databases, defined by consulting experts and weighted by a panel of stakeholders through a multi-criteria method to obtain a territorialised risk index at the highest level of disaggregation of the available data, based on the dimensions of vulnerability, threat and resilience.

This paper analyses teleworking in social services during the state of alarm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. It has a double objective: To analyse the profile of the professional who teleworked in social services and, on the other hand, to analyse the perception of teleworkers of working conditions during this period, as well as the degree to which they have been affected by them depending on whether they work face-to-face or telematically. To this end, a questionnaire was administered to Spanish social service professionals working, obtaining a sample of 560 professionals in the sector. The profile obtained in relation to teleworking may be especially useful when considering the progressive incorporation of more non-presential activity in social services, and the results show that, although teleworking has been perceived as an efficient way of overcoming the limitations to face-to-face work arising from the pandemic, both the positive and negative consequences of the implementation of this modality of work should be carefully assessed.