The Role of Resilience in Social Services During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Resilience is considered a significant concept in research on a variety of topics at the individual, organizational, and community levels. In this qualitative, grounded theory study based on 20 semi-structured interviews, we discuss a set of factors that emerged as contributing to resilience among social service providers working with homeless or homeless-adjacent vulnerable populations during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article specifically addresses the variation in resilience that emerged between providers in the face of these pandemic-related challenges. We found that the following four factors, in interaction with each other, influenced the degree of provider resilience: Restrictions providers had to implement to keep clients safe and associated feelings of guilt and helplessness, outbreaks and losses affecting the organization and its staff during the pandemic, isolation from the community, clients, and fellow staff, and existing vulnerabilities, such as personal struggles with mental health or complicated family situations. The article also discusses the implications of these findings for future research and social work practice.