“They are waiting for us”: The impact of the full-scale war on the working conditions of social workers

Introduction

The full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation (hereafter referred to as the US) in Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, has changed the life of the entire country and impacted every aspect of it. The war has caused the massive displacement of millions of Ukrainians, the destruction of homes and social ties, the loss of housing, jobs, and confidence in the future. Hundreds of Ukrainians have lost their loved ones in the war, thousands have joined the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and thousands are waiting for their relatives to return home. 

The socio-economic consequences of the war are particularly severe for those who were already especially vulnerable, such as low-income families, elderly people, people with disabilities, single parents, and others. These vulnerabilities are largely tied to structural issues in social and housing policies, the lack of necessary social infrastructure, insufficient accessibility in public spaces, gaps in the provision of social services caused by decentralization, high levels of poverty. The war, especially during the first year of the full-scale invasion, highlighted existing problems in various sectors of public services to a certain extent, and, particularly due to significant infrastructure damage caused by hostilities, exacerbated them. Moreover, the war forced those who were previously used to relying solely on themselves to seek help, making millions of citizens feel their vulnerability.

The social protection system for the population is designed to support people in difficult situations that they cannot manage on their own, such as poverty, loneliness, homelessness, prolonged health issues, and in cases when they require additional support. Ukrainian legislation defines such periods in a person’s life as “difficult life circumstances” and provides for a range of programs aimed at offering financial support and preventing poverty: government assistance payments, subsidies, and benefits, as well as a wide range of social services intended to prevent the occurrence of such situations, minimize their impact on a person’s quality of life, and help individuals and families cope with such difficult situations, overcoming the negative influence of various circumstances..

The intensification of vulnerabilities and the growing need for support has led to a significant strain on the social protection sector. Workers in this field were among those who helped to mitigate the negative consequences of the war from the first days of the full-scale invasion and continue to do so to this day.

This text is dedicated to how the war has affected the daily work of these individuals. It focuses on workers who are directly involved in providing social services in municipal institutions located in communities. These are people working in territorial centers for social service, social service provision centers, and social service centers. They include visiting carers, social workers, social work specialists, psychologists, drivers, department heads, directors of institutions, and other specialists[4]. While many of the insights pertain to these workers as a whole, more attention is given to visiting carers and social work specialists, as they make up the largest group in the staffing structures of institutions that provide social services (in other words, their role in the direct provision of social services is key), as well as to the heads of institutions due to the level of responsibility and influence associated with these positions.

Visiting carers work in territorial social service centers (hereafter referred to as territorial centers) and social service provision centers (hereafter also referred to as SSPCs). They are primarily involved in providing home care services as well as the service of material assistance. Their work may include helping with household tasks (such as cleaning, cooking), self-care (for example, they may assist a person with bathing and performing other necessary hygiene procedures), moving around the apartment, paying utility bills, handling documentation, and processing mail. In rural areas, visiting carers may also assist their clients with maintaining their gardens. Visiting carers ensure that their clients receive food, personal hygiene products, and other necessary items.

Social work specialists primarily work in social service centers (hereafter also referred to as SSCs) and SSPCs. These workers mainly provide social services to families experiencing difficult life circumstances, guardian families, foster families, vulnerable categories of children, individuals returning from places of detention and their families, among others. The role of social work specialists is multifaceted. First, they are involved in identifying vulnerable individuals and families who may need social services and in keeping records on them. This includes conducting social inspections of households showing signs of difficult life circumstances (for example, signs of alcohol abuse or neglect of parental duties). Second, they are responsible for developing individualized social service plans for a specific person or family, which contain a detailed program of social work, essentially a roadmap the specialist must follow with the family to help them overcome or minimize the impact of their difficult life circumstances.  Based on such plans, social work specialists provide ongoing support to vulnerable families, which may also involve collaboration with other social service agencies, assisting in the collection and processing of documents for government social payments and assistance, subsidies, etc.

Managers (directors, department heads) are responsible for organizing the work of the staff and the entire institution that provides social services.

Considering various aspects of working conditions, this text aims to outline the main changes that have occurred since February 24, 2022, and to summarize the main issues that had existed before as well but still remain unresolved. These key aspects of working conditions primarily include the following:

• workload (its nature, the balance between the volume of work and working hours, issues related to overworking related to the workload);
• work schedule (the duration and organization of working hours and the ability to influence it);
• workplace and provision of work tools;
• movement around the city as part of job duties;
• labor compensation (its amount, fairness, and stability);
• safe conditions for physical and mental health (including issues of work-related stress and the psycho-emotional state of the workers).

A separate topic that received special attention is the impact of bombings, air raid alarms, and power outages on the work process as a whole and the aforementioned aspects of working conditions in particular.

As more of an overview, this material also touches on the comfort of relationships with colleagues and the management, as well as the ability to voice opinions and influence problem-solving in the workplace.

In developing this material, we relied on the basic definition of working conditions by the International Labour Organization (ILO), which states that “working conditions cover a broad range of topics and issues, from working time (working hours, break hours, and work schedules) to labor compensation, physical conditions, and psychological challenges that exist in the workplace,” as well as on the definition of “decent work” used by ILO. According to the ILO, decent work is employment that “delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for all, better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men.” The list of working conditions focused on in this material is somewhat narrower, as its primary emphasis is on those conditions that could be significantly affected by the war.

This text is primarily based on three focus group discussions and several interviews with representatives of primary trade union organizations in the social sector, conducted in December 2023.

The three focus group discussions included visiting carers, social work specialists, department heads and directors of territorial centers, social service centers, and social service provision centers.

Each focus group discussion included workers from municipal institutions located in the three main types of territorial communities in Ukraine: rural, rural town, and urban. In every discussion, there was at least one participant from a frontline community, as well as from a community that had received a significant number of internally displaced persons. These communities were from Dnipropetrovsk, Chernihiv, Chernivtsi, Kharkiv, and Kyiv Regions.

This diversity of experiences among the participants was ensured because the type of community in particular can influence the organization of social service delivery and certain key working conditions (for example, payment of bonuses from the local budget; the development of public transportation networks, which is important for workers who frequently travel around the city as part of their job). At the same time, conclusions from previously conducted studies suggest that the workload and nature of the responsibilities of social workers in frontline communities, as well as in communities that have received a large number of internally displaced persons (IDPs), may have significant differences. Some participants in the focus group discussions also experienced the temporary occupation of their community in 2022. 

Additionally, all focus group participants had worked in their positions for at least one year before February 24, 2022. On average, their length of service in their current role was 9.5 years. This criterion was necessary to ensure that, when discussing the impact of the war on working conditions, the participants had sufficient work experience before the full-scale invasion to be able to identify certain changes.

The analysis of these discussions is complemented by conclusions and insights from other research in the field of social service provision, in which the author of the text was involved during 2022–2023, as well as data and insights from other relevant studies examined during the preparation of this material, focusing on the impact of the war on the social sector and vulnerable population groups.

In view of the methods used for data collection and analysis, it should be noted that the insights of this study may not represent the experience of all social workers in Ukraine.

Conclusions

Overall, it can be concluded that the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has had a negative impact on the working conditions of social workers. At the same time, it is mostly about deepening the existing problems that were already prevalent in this sector before. These include low wages, heavy workloads that often exceed the norms established by legislation, widespread insufficient provision of work tools and means of transportation necessary for social workers to move within the community.

Among the factors that contributed to the increased workload during the war, especially in the first year of the full-scale invasion, were the organization of reception and assistance in resettling IDPs in the community, as well as providing them with various services; the involvement of social workers in the organization of reception, distribution, and delivery of humanitarian aid, as well as in processing the status of children affected by military actions; the growing number of people requiring care services due to the large number of elderly individuals left alone after their relatives who used to care for them left; and the increase in cases of domestic violence cases. The work with the families of military service members and veterans, whose volume has been gradually expanding, is also becoming another such factor. In some communities, social workers were also involved in checking the availability and accessibility of shelters, which slightly increased their workload in February–March 2022. In communities that were/are located near active combat zones and/or regularly shelled by the Russian army, as well as in those that were under occupation, the departure of some social workers to safer regions was another factor that led to increased workloads for the workers who remained.

The existing problems with labor compensation were exacerbated by the rapid rise in inflation and the increase in food prices, which led to a decrease in the purchasing power of salaries in the social sector. Due to decreased revenues to local budgets, many communities temporarily suspended (or reduced) the payment of various bonuses and additional payments, which constitute a significant portion of social workers’ salaries. After the minimum wage increase in 2024, the wages of some social workers in the lowest tariff grades, whose base salary was lower than the minimum wage, slightly increased. However, there remains a problem with linking the calculation of base salaries to the legislatively defined subsistence minimum (which, moreover, is very low and does not reflect actual living costs) and the “absorption” of some additional payments and bonuses into bringing salaries up to the minimum wage level.

The war also affects the safety of the labor of those employed in the social sector, especially social workers living in communities near the front line. Since their work is largely tied to moving around the city, and in some cases, these movements make up the majority of their workday, social workers face increased safety risks during wartime as they are often in locations far from shelters. The demanding work schedule and high level of responsibility for its completion often prompt workers to take a highly practical approach to using the work time which they spend in bomb shelters, and sometimes they may disregard safety rules and ignore air raid warnings. The suspension of public transport during air raids, as well as frequent power outages, also negatively impact the daily work of those employed in the social sector, especially visiting carers, making it significantly more difficult for them to carry out their duties.

Increasing salaries and revising the methods of their calculation, reducing the amount of paperwork and reporting that social workers have to complete, providing consistent psychological support, and extending the length of vacations for physical recovery and psychological relief — these are the steps most frequently mentioned by the informants in this study when discussing ways to significantly improve working conditions in the social sector. Improving working conditions and compensation, in turn, will help raise the prestige of the social worker profession and encourage the retention and development of the workforce potential in this field.