Protecting vulnerability: An international comparison of social workers as street-level bureaucrats during the COVID-19 lockdown

This presentation is based on the findings of the project called "Theory and Practice of Social Work in the World in Times of Pandemic", which was funded by the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW). The project involved eleven universities across five countries in Europe and Latin America, including Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. The research was conducted over 24 months to analyse the practices and measures taken to protect vulnerable people by adapting social services during the extraordinary period of the pandemic. In addition, the research explored how the awareness of emergency arose among social workers and how it influenced the services delivered from the perspective of the street-level bureaucracy theory.