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We want to thank you for highlighting the importance of the economic aspects of the covid crisis.
We wanted to ask the authors two questions:
As researchers in health-related social work in Germany, we can fully support the claims, the authors made, theoretically. But, is there any evidence that social workers can assist effectively? And additionally, is it maybe more than financial support? Stahl and colleagues (2021) developed a great idea with their concept of "social insurance literacy" which is relational and takes into account the abilities of, as you will, people with complex needs and the systems’ comprehensibility. In our experience with social work practice in a medical rehabilitation setting, social workers are (or have to be) social insurance literacy experts as a great amount of work is information work, planning work and supporting applications.
Yours,
Tobias Knoop & Nadja Scheiblich
Ståhl, Christian; Karlsson, Elin A.; Sandqvist, Jan; Hensing, Gunnel; Brouwer, Sandra; Friberg, Emilie; MacEachen, Ellen (2021): Social insurance literacy: a scoping review on how to define and measure it. In: Disability and rehabilitation 43 (12), S. 1776–1785. DOI: 10.1080/09638288.2019.1672111.
Re: Social workers can help adults with complex needs with financial wellbeing
Dear Editor,
We want to thank you for highlighting the importance of the economic aspects of the covid crisis.
We wanted to ask the authors two questions:
As researchers in health-related social work in Germany, we can fully support the claims, the authors made, theoretically. But, is there any evidence that social workers can assist effectively? And additionally, is it maybe more than financial support? Stahl and colleagues (2021) developed a great idea with their concept of "social insurance literacy" which is relational and takes into account the abilities of, as you will, people with complex needs and the systems’ comprehensibility. In our experience with social work practice in a medical rehabilitation setting, social workers are (or have to be) social insurance literacy experts as a great amount of work is information work, planning work and supporting applications.
Yours,
Tobias Knoop & Nadja Scheiblich
Ståhl, Christian; Karlsson, Elin A.; Sandqvist, Jan; Hensing, Gunnel; Brouwer, Sandra; Friberg, Emilie; MacEachen, Ellen (2021): Social insurance literacy: a scoping review on how to define and measure it. In: Disability and rehabilitation 43 (12), S. 1776–1785. DOI: 10.1080/09638288.2019.1672111.
Competing interests: No competing interests