The biggest challenge faced is the overwhelming work load that a social worker is faced with. For example in an entire regional referral hospital in Ugandan setting, you find there is only one(1) social work personnel. Regional referral hospital takes care of about 200 clients on a daily basis and such a facility to have one social worker becomes an over whelmed with responsibility.

This social worker has to attend, record, report, and file the gathered information all alone.

This reminds me of an adage that says " too much of anything is always bad"

Space is another challenge. The fact that a facility is given one officer means that all other tools to use to enable a good work to be done are limited if not absent. Office space, equipment and resources plus other motivating factors like support staff, refreshments, overtime payments are needed and if not availed it becomes a challenging to manage data.

I agree with Annah Uwimana. Social workers have overwhelming job responsibilities and may not have time for data management. I think another reason is the lack of training on data management social workers recieve. There is a research methods course you take in your graduate studies but it is really geared towards conducting research and research analysis but not so much in data management for everyday social work use in the profession. I do find data management and collection has been extremely helpful in my career. However, this is something I had to learn through one of my job positions as a director and I received training on data management from professionals in other disciplines.

Here are some articles:

https://www.ncwwi.org/files/Data-Driven_Decision_Making__CQI/Harnessing_Big_Data_for_Social_Good_-_A_Grand_Challenge_for_Social_Work.pdf

Zetino, J., & Mendoza, N. (2019). Big data and its utility in social work: Learning from the big data revolution in business and healthcare. Social Work in Public Health, 34(5), 409-417.

Thank you Marina Badillo for your additional information. It is true, training in data management for social workers is needed given the nature of their job.

The articles you have shared are helpful. Thank you.