Five Great Apps for Child and Family Social Workers

Child and Family Social Workers Should Check Out These Five Great Apps

The Savvy Social Worker
The Social Work Social Media App
Suicide Safe by SAMHSA
MobilePatrol
Evernote

In order to stay in touch with news, best practices and leaders in the field, these five great apps for child and family social workers are an ideal solution. A child and family social worker could try one of these apps for organizing schedules, keeping up with articles or keeping notes about their cases. Each of these five apps can be used in different mobile environments, operating systems and mobile browsers.

The Savvy Social Worker

Sponsored by the University of Buffalo School of Social work, The Savvy Social Worker app makes it easy for a social worker to stay updated about news, events and research in child and family social services. This app focuses on evidence-based practices and research related to social work. It is an RSS feed that offers short descriptions and links to the relevant articles, and the user can choose to tap on the hyperlink in order to access the full content. The app is free to download in Google Play for Android devices.

The Social Work Social Media App

Social workers looking for both fun and learning can try the Social Work Social Media App. This app takes a gamification approach to ethical dilemmas. It has a focus on social media in social work. The goal of the app is to identify ethical dilemmas, start a discussion and have a respectful debate about what is ethical or unethical in how a social worker might use social media for work-related purposes. This app is available for $.99 in iOS and Android versions.

Suicide Safe by SAMHSA

The Suicide Safe by SAMHSA is an app that allows a child and family social worker to locate resources if a person is feeling suicidal or has exhibited self-harming behaviors. It helps the social worker find local crisis intervention services, available hospital beds, psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health facilities that may be able to provide immediate psychological or medical care to the person in need. It also has education information so that the social worker can inform family members about the signs of suicidal behavior. It is based on the Suicide Assessment Five-Step Evaluation and Triage guidelines. This app is available in iOS and Android for free.

MobilePatrol

According to Team Northwoods, MobilePatrol is an app that enhances client visibility. The social worker can use it in order to find jail bookings, locate possible local foster parents or locate sex offenders within a specific zip code. It can also be used to identify outstanding warrants and access a list of missing children from an area. Social workers can use it in order to find out if children under their protection have gone missing. It is available at no cost in Android and iOS.

Evernote

Child and family social workers can use the Evernote app to make digital notes about clients or things that they need to follow up on after a visit or meeting. The notes can be made sharable with a specific audience. The app allows the user to search for specific keywords. Each note can be named. The basic version of Evernote is available for free on Android and iOS, and a paid version is available.

These apps are compatible with a wide range of devices, but keep in mind that support and debugging could change at any time. As apps evolve, child and family social workers should keep up with new features and versions that could help them do their work. Each of these five great apps for child and family social workers helps the individual in their mission to assist children and families with the best possible outcomes.