Practice research on social work responses to a community health crisis in Hong Kong’s public housing estates

Abstract This study explores social work responses to the Coronavirus disease 2019 community health crisis in the Hong Kong public rental housing estates community. By articulating the process in which social workers respond to community needs, this study explores the idea that the nature of community social work is habitual and formed by a series of purposive coping actions rather that deriving from plans and proposals. The habitual state of conducting community work is further explored through the lens of sense-making and modus operandi, where it highlights a practitioners’ enactment and embodiment. Seventeen social worker teams in fourteen public rental housing estates are engaged. Individual monthly Zoom meetings are employed as the primary research method, in which they are conducted in the form of open-ended dialogue. With a dwelling mode of practice research in which researchers are fully immersed into the practices of front-line social workers, intersubjectivity, collective sense-making and co-construction of reality and practice take place. Based on our findings, we highlight the importance of recognizing social work practice as a confluence between preconscious and conscious being.