Today is World Social Work Day, an opportunity to highlight and promote the achievements of social work.
Monash Health boasts over 300 social workers across many programs, ranging from mental health, community and inpatient services, including women’s newborns and children’s services, specialist medicine, chronic and critical care and palliative care.
The pandemic has had a significant impact on the lives of many people in Australia and globally. Social workers have played a key role by working alongside affected people to ensure their needs are met in a holistic way and their human rights are upheld.
Social workers have continued to deliver a range of frontline services to clients in the community, as well in the hospital setting, and they have worked tirelessly to link individuals and families to a range of health and social supports to support overall health and wellbeing. This includes access to emergency relief and material aid, housing and income support and crisis intervention services for patients at risk, such as mental health, family violence and sexual assault services and child protection.
At Monash Health, social workers have performed a variety of roles to support the pandemic response and our community. This includes working in the South East Public Health Unit Contact Tracing Team, COVID pathways and the complex care team, COVID Emergency Department Care Navigators, Allied Health COVID Discharge leaders and vaccination hubs.
Our social workers have also migrated across program areas to support the COVID response, such as Community Social Work team members coming into the hospital to support the inpatient Social Work teams during periods of high demand.
Jacinta Re, Head of Social Work at Monash Health, is so proud of all social workers at Monash Health for the important role they play.
“I am extremely grateful for the exceptional teamwork all social workers at Monash Health have shown.”
