‘Bonding, bridging and linking the last resort tailboard’: Shifts in social workers’ professional positions and mobilizing adaptive capital during the coronavirus pandemic

This article addresses the activities of Finnish social workers during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020. The goal is to explore 1) what types of shifts in social workers’ professional positions occurred during this pandemic setting and 2) what kind of professional capital, here as human capital and adaptive resources that are required in a pandemic, occurred. The data consist of 33 personal diaries that the social work professionals created from mid-March to the end of May 2020. The diaries were analysed using a narrative positioning analysis. The analysis focuses on three specific sets of social relations: clients, service providers and society. The results suggest that social workers faced several shifts in their professional positions during the first wave of the pandemic. Many positions were familiar, but small and simultaneous changes in several positions brought about a significant overall change in the social work agenda and the required adaptive capacities. The analysis showed that the specific professional expertise of social work concerns its ethical principles and the holistic approach, as well as the competencies needed to organize bonding, bridging and linking capital across social networks, services and institutions.