How and why I use AI: 6 tips from a social worker (with free prompts)

As a social worker whose career has spanned over a decade, I’ve had the privilege of wearing many different hats. 

In this blog post, I’d like to share 6 ways that AI has made my life easier, including what kind of work tasks I’ve been able to simplify and helpful prompts you can use to do the same. 

I’ll also address what using AI responsibly and ethically looks like and how specific tools like Upheal can align with our professional values so you can decide if it’s something you could consider introducing into your own practice.

Why use AI at all? 

It’s no secret that social workers are overworked and underpaid. Generative AI tools have been very valuable in helping me save time and improve my efficiency to meet the many demands of my busy daily life. 

I’ve found AI can help me with everything from my consulting business to responding to emails, planning and preparing training workshops, teaching classes, and even managing my social media.

How AI can help social workers 

There are so many ways that the research already sees AI being a supportive tool for social workers. In direct practice, AI can help with writing referral letters, generating educational material, writing treatment plans, documentation, grant writing, fundraising, and more. On a mezzo and macro level, it can help by conducting policy analysis, program evaluations, and community organizing. AI behavioral health apps can also be used to support social work therapeutic interventions.

By writing clearly articulated “prompts” that set the context for your search query, task, or content output, AI can source, brainstorm, present knowledge, and more, in seconds. These prompts act as instructions that should also include the scope, tone, and focus of the AI’s response you are seeking to generate. The more clear, explicit, and detailed the prompt, the better the output of AI’s response.‍

The start of my AI journey began cautiously.‍

While there are many benefits, like many of my colleagues, I initially approached my use of AI with a mixture of curiosity and caution. The social work field is deeply rooted in ethical practice and I was worried that incorporating AI would diminish my connections.

In reality, I discovered that this is quite the opposite. Because I use AI tools to improve the efficiency and completion of my administrative tasks, I now have more time for what matters most – serving my students, colleagues, communities, and organizations.

That said, the transformation to using AI did not happen overnight and it was a learning journey and a process.

I’d love for my lessons to pave the way for you!

Tip 1: Use AI to complete administrative tasks faster

I know firsthand how time-consuming the administrative tasks of a social worker are. Tasks that would take me hours to complete are now being completed in minutes. For direct practice, AI can support social workers:

• Draft documentation notes
• Create responses to emails
• Develop meeting agendas
• Create referral letters
• Generating educational material
• Draft treatment plans

Tip 2: AI can help with teaching and training

AI tools are now changing how I teach professional development workshops for social workers. Generative AI can quickly help research information to add to lecture notes or PowerPoint presentations. I often use AI tools that help me create activities to enhance student learning such as:

• Develop discussion questions
• Come up with case scenarios
• Create transcripts of counseling sessions

You might not love all the suggestions, but you’ll likely be inspired by the suggested topics – and that’s valuable in itself. 

Tip 3: Use it to synthesize data for reports

Because I am in a leadership role, I often have to write reports while providing professional recommendations. I have found AI tools have been invaluable by:

• Helping me generate professional reports 
• Synthesizing and analyzing data
• Creating actionable recommendations

Tip 4: Let AI do the note-taking

Note-taking during client sessions can be time-consuming. Especially when you are managing a large private practice or caseload at an agency. However, you might just want to find extra time in your day as a small private practice owner. Another lesson I have learned using AI is that there are tools like Upheal that, with client consent, can record your counseling sessions and in mere seconds produce a progress note saving you hours of your time.

You can even customize the notes entirely to your liking.

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Tip 5: Delegate your social media use and networking

To maintain an active online presence while managing my day-to-day social work tasks, I use AI tools to help me generate engaging content which has been essential in helping me network and build my business. I have used AI to:

• Write LinkedIn posts
• Generate Instagram reel ideas
• Produce Generative AI images for my blog posts
• Create messages to send to LinkedIn connections requesting to network

Tip 6: For well-being and burnout prevention

Because I use AI daily as my personal assistant, this has saved me so much time, and energy, and improved my efficiency in completing the many tasks on my to-do list leaving me with more personal time to engage in self-care. 

AI has helped me prevent burnout by helping me reduce time on administrative tasks and as a result increased my time to provide more opportunities to do the social work tasks that I love which is engagement with my students, supervisees, trainees, colleagues, and communities which I serve. I have used AI to help with my self-care and wellness by prompting ChatGPT to:

• Provide me with a list of care strategies
• Develop a self-care plan and schedule
• Generate healthy meal recipes

Making sure your AI use is ethical

AI has immense potential to support social workers and practitioners; however, it’s important to understand the ethical implications of using this technology. Here are the important areas to pay attention to to ensure you’re using it ethically:

• Informed consent 
• Client autonomy
• Privacy and confidentiality 
• Transparency 
• Client misdiagnosis, abandonment, surveillance
• Plagiarism and dishonesty
• Fraud and misrepresentation
• Algorithmic bias and unfairness

8 steps to implementing a more ethical approach‍

At the core of my AI practice for social work, I advocate for using these tools ethically and responsibly while also sharing that it should be a choice to integrate these tools into your practice.

So, if, as a social worker or practitioner, you choose to use AI here are some ways to practice using it ethically:

1. Practice transparency
   Communicate with clients regarding the relevant risks and benefits of using AI.
   Be transparent about how you use it and always collect informed consent with tools that record client therapy sessions.
   
2. Encourage choice and respect
   ‍Respect the client’s determination and judgment if they do not want AI to be used in their therapy treatment.
   

3. Choose not to enter identifiable information
   Choose not to enter identifiable client information including names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. Certain tools, such as Upheal, don’t even require it, allowing you to create anonymous clients.
   
4. Only use HIPAA-compliant platforms
   It is recommended that social workers only use HIPPA-compliant AI platforms. This ensures that information entered into the AI tool is more secure and compliant with regulations and protects client information. Additionally, take steps to prevent inappropriate access to AI-generated data by third parties who may test AI data.
   
   I address this by researching and selecting platforms like Upheal, which disclose their security measures on their website and are independently evaluated and monitored by a 3rd party. Choosing tools that commit to AI security and privacy helps safeguard the information I enter.
   
5. Keep your expertise – don’t over-rely on AI
   Demonstrate boundaries and professional decision-making. Not critically engaging in reviewing information that these AI tools generate is a slippery slope. Be mindful about how and when you choose to use these tools and always review the output.

6. Review for any bias
   AI tools are biased. To some degree, that is a reflection of the world. Diverse perspectives and populations may not be considered. Since generated content can further perpetuate bias, make sure to check for bias.
   
7. Lead the way in your agency or organization
   Follow your agency’s AI policies and guidelines. If there are no AI policies or guidelines, then advocate for some. You can be part of creating responsible guidelines for its use.
   
8. Stay on top of this evolving field 
   ‍Enhance your professional development in understanding AI by continuously learning about these technologies and tools. If you are a social worker, review the NASW, CSWE, & CSWA’s (2017) Technology Standards for Social Work Practice to familiarize yourself with ethical practices and responsible technology use. 

Artificial intelligence has immense potential to support social workers in their job tasks no matter what area of social work they are practicing in. 

I hope these lessons from my own journey can help our collective wisdom as social workers navigate this new frontier of AI in social work practice. Share your AI journey with others so we can continue to build a community that can learn from each other and amplify our impact as social workers.