In my master's thesis, I am working on the question of the digitisation of social work. I am interested in how social workers use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in social work, what ethical challenges they face and how digitisation affects the social inclusion of users. In the theoretical part, I first analysed the basic terminology in the field of digitisation in social work, reviewed some of the basic documents of the Republic of Slovenia and the European Union that address digitisation, and included statistics related to digitisation for the Republic of Slovenia. I have also done a literature review on digitisation in the field of social work. I concluded the theoretical part with an overview of the IT tools used by social work centres in Slovenia. In the empirical part, I present the results of qualitative research I conducted on a non-randomised sample of 8 female interviewees. When interviewing them, I was interested in what forms of Information and Communication Technologies they use in their work and for what purposes, what challenges they face in their use, how digitisation affects social work, what ethical challenges social workers face when using Information and Communication Technologies, and how digitisation affects users. The survey largely confirmed international research. The benefits of ICT for social work are faster and easier communication, faster information retrieval and more efficient work. The disadvantages of ICT for social work are shortcomings of communication when using ICT, technical difficulties and the negative impact ICT has on the well-being of social workers. In particular, social workers working in social work centres report the time-consuming nature of documenting their work using ICT. The survey also shows that there is a digital divide among social workers based on their skills and motivation to use ICT. The survey also shows that there is a blurring of professional boundaries in social work among social workers due to the use of ICT and that social workers maintain professional boundaries with varying degrees of success. The consequences of the failure to maintain boundaries are manifested in the experience of feeling overburdened and the feeling that the work commitment does not end after the eight-hour working day, but rather that they have the feeling of 'always being at work'. Social workers also face issues of personal data protection when using ICT. The research also shows that there is a digital divide between users based on users' access to the internet and ICT, with differences in users' digital skills and motivation to use ICT. In addition, the research shows that good digital skills and users' good access to ICT improve the situation of people living in vulnerable contexts, while weak digital skills are reflected in users' disadvantaged positions and difficulty in accessing e-services. The social workers surveyed have taken a very active role in reducing the digital divide and its consequences, recognising the importance of acquiring digital skills for their work but not recognising the importance of an active role for social work in digitising social work services and shaping the digital agenda. Social workers, therefore, recognise their role in digitisation at the micro level but not at the macro level.
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