Social Work and Social Presence in an Online World

Human presence is a fundamental consideration of social work practices. The argument in this article is not to undermine such notions but to elaborate on them based on research into social presence, a type of presence projected when a person is associating with others. Communication and information technologies support applications that develop social presence and enable sociality. Such forms of presence are not confined to face-to-face encounters but are necessarily relational. Underlying such a realization is the conviction that all flows of social presence must and can be connected and directed in the conduct of social work practices.