New Publication Alert!! Social Work on Mars: A Narrative Foresight Analysis
In my latest publication with Jonathan Singer of the Social Work Podcasts, we explore questions related to what social work on Mars would look like in the future. The paper, which is open access so you can read it here, presents a speculative but possible future scenario where Social Workers are on Mars to help us grapple with some present problems we face today. Major Kudos to Jonathan for creating a couple of posters, see below, to help us further unlock our creative imaginaries around what futures might be possible. The images are below and I hope you enjoy them. I talked about this foresight skill on my recent TikTok post, which you can see here.
Imaginative Social Work on Mars Poster, moving, part 3.
Futures Thinking in Social Work: Responding to Change and Shaping What Comes Next
What can futures thinking offer social work? This article explores how the profession can move beyond responding to change and become more intentional about anticipating and shaping what comes next.
Social work is already a future(s)-oriented profession, even if we do not always describe it that way.
When we work with a client to identify goals, develop a program intended to improve community outcomes, advocate for a policy change, or educate students for careers that may span several decades, we are making assumptions about what comes next. We are imagining that conditions can change and that our actions in the present can influence future outcomes.
Yet as a profession, we spend relatively little time examining those assumptions directly.
That is one reason why futures thinking in social work is critically needed! Futures thinking creates space to look beyond the immediate demands of practice and ask a different set of questions about change, uncertainty, and possibility.
It does not tell us what the future will be. It helps us become more thoughtful about the futures we may encounter and more intentional about the futures we help create.
Social Work Is Often Asked to Respond After Change Has Already Happened
Social workers are exceptionally good at responding to complexity. We work in systems where needs are urgent, resources are limited, and circumstances can change quickly.
There is also a downside to constantly operating in response mode.
By the time a new challenge becomes obvious, many of the conditions that created it may already be well established. Organizations are then forced to adapt quickly. Educational programs add new content to curricula. Professional associations issue guidance. Practitioners figure out how to respond while continuing to serve clients and communities.
We can see this happening with artificial intelligence right now.
Only a few years ago, generative AI was largely outside mainstream conversations in social work. Today, students are using it, practitioners are experimenting with it, organizations are considering it, and educators are trying to determine what responsible use should look like. I have many signals across several platforms identifying these forces that are shaping our future(s) right now.
The profession is responding, as it should. But imagine if our conversations had begun earlier.
What questions might we have asked before these technologies were widely available? What ethical issues might we have anticipated? What skills would we have wanted students to develop? What kinds of policies or safeguards might we have considered?
This is where futures thinking and strategic foresight becomes useful.
It gives us permission to engage with change before we are certain where it is going.
Futures Thinking Is Not Prediction
People sometimes hear the word future and assume that futures thinking is about predicting the future. The problem, as Dr. Emmett Brown so eloquently stated in Back to the Future III, is that
“(Y)our future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. (Y)our future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one! ”
When we try to predict the future it narrows our attention toward a particular outcome. Futures thinking and strategic foresight widens it.
Instead of asking, “What is the future of social work?” we can ask:
What different futures might social work face?
What changes are beginning to emerge around us?
Which assumptions about practice, education, policy, or organizations may no longer hold?
What possibilities are we overlooking because they do not fit our current expectations?
And perhaps most importantly, What kinds of futures do we actually want?
These questions shift the conversation away from certainty and toward possibility. That distinction matters because uncertainty is not a temporary condition that social workers will eventually overcome. It is part of the environment in which we practice.
Futures thinking gives us a way to engage that uncertainty rather than simply wait for it to resolve.
The Problem With Assuming Tomorrow Will Look Like Today
One of the easiest mistakes to make when thinking about the future is to extend the present forward.
We assume existing institutions will continue to operate in roughly the same way. We imagine that professional roles will remain stable. We expect education, healthcare, government, and human services to continue functioning according to familiar models. However, those assumptions are no longer reasonable! The future rarely arrives as a completely unfamiliar world. More often, it emerges through a combination of continuity and disruption. Some parts of our systems remain recognizable while others change dramatically.
For social work, this could involve shifts in how services are delivered, how organizations are funded, how people access information, how professional expertise is understood, or how communities organize around social issues. Technology is certainly part of that story, but it is not the whole story. Climate change, demographic change, political instability, economic inequality, changing expectations of higher education, and declining trust in institutions may all shape the environments in which future social workers practice.
The purpose of futures thinking is not to create an exhaustive list of trends. It is to develop a habit of looking beyond what is immediately visible.
Futures Thinking Changes the Questions We Ask
One of the things I appreciate most about futures & foresight work is that it changes the quality of the questions.
Consider a social work program thinking about artificial intelligence or AI.
A present-focused question might be:
How should students use generative AI in their assignments?
That is an important question, but it is also relatively narrow.
A futures-oriented conversation might ask:
How could AI change the nature of professional expertise?
What kinds of tasks might social workers no longer perform themselves?
Which aspects of practice should remain fundamentally human?
How might clients' expectations change as AI becomes more common in other parts of their lives?
What happens if access to sophisticated technology becomes another source of inequality?
What new forms of bias, surveillance, or exclusion could emerge?
How should social work values influence the design and use of these systems?
Those questions do not have simple answers and that is precisely why they are worth asking.
Futures thinking is valuable not because it makes uncertainty disappear, but because it helps us become more comfortable working within it.
Whose Future Are We Talking About?
There is another reason I believe futures thinking belongs in social work. Questions about the future are also questions about power.
Who gets to imagine the future?
Who gets to make decisions about it?
Whose experiences are represented?
Who benefits from particular innovations, policies, or systems?
Who bears the risk when they fail?
A technology company may imagine one future for human services. A government agency may imagine another. A university, healthcare system, nonprofit organization, social worker, and community member may each see different possibilities.
None of those perspectives is neutral.
For social work, this means futures thinking cannot simply be an exercise in identifying what is new or exciting. We have to ask what different futures mean for people who have historically been excluded from decisions about the systems that affect their lives. A future can be technologically sophisticated and still be unjust. It can be efficient and still be dehumanizing. It can be innovative and still reproduce longstanding inequities.
Social work has something important to contribute to future(s) conversations precisely because the profession brings questions of ethics, power, justice, human relationships, and community wellbeing into the discussion.
Futures Thinking as a Professional Capacity
I do not think the believe that every social worker needs to become a professional futurist! I do think social workers can benefit from developing a stronger capacity to anticipate change and think beyond immediate conditions. That may be as simple as creating regular opportunities within organizations or classrooms to ask key questions:
What are we noticing that feels different?
What are we assuming will remain the same?
What developments outside social work could eventually affect our work?
What would surprise us if it happened five years from now?
What future are our current decisions helping create?
These questions can be incorporated into strategic planning, supervision, classroom discussions, program evaluation, community engagement, and policy analysis. The value is not necessarily in producing a perfect answer but in stretching our thinking beyond the constraints of the present.
Social Work Education Has a Particular Responsibility
I have am especially interested in what futures thinking means for social work education. In part because I am a social work Professor, but also because I care deeply about this profession. We are preparing students for a profession that will continue to change long after they leave our classrooms. That creates a challenge.
We have to teach what students need to know today while also preparing them to operate in environments we cannot fully describe. Content knowledge remains essential, but I am increasingly convinced that students also need practice navigating ambiguity, questioning assumptions, examining emerging change, and imagining alternatives. In a recent teaching note with colleagues, I explored how futures thinking and strategic foresight can be integrated into social work education rather than treated as something separate from the existing curriculum.
That work reinforced something I have come to believe more broadly: preparing students for the future is not primarily about teaching them to use a particular tool. It is about helping them become more adaptive thinkers. The technologies will change. The terminology will change. The social issues confronting the profession will change.
The ability to think critically about change will remain valuable, well into the future.
Taking the Long View
There is a tendency to think about the future as something far away. I no longer believe that is particularly helpful. The futures we eventually experience are already taking shape through decisions being made today.
Some changes are easy to see. Others begin as weak signals at the edges of our attention. Some will disappear. Others may fundamentally alter the systems in which social workers practice. We will not identify all of them correctly and that is not the standard by which futures thinking should be judged.
The more useful question is whether we are building a profession capable of looking ahead without losing sight of the people and values that define our work.
Can we become more curious about what is emerging?
Can we examine our assumptions before circumstances force us to?
Can we create space for communities to imagine their own futures?
Can we recognize both the promise and the potential harm of new technologies and social changes?
Can we move beyond asking what the future will bring and begin asking what role social work should play in shaping it?
For me, futures thinking and strategic foresight in social work is ultimately about developing that capacity. It is an invitation to take a longer view of our profession and the world around us. Not because we can predict what comes next.
But because what we do next still matters!
Are we Preparing Students for a Future that is Already Changing?
The future of education is often discussed as if there is one obvious challenge sitting in front of us: artificial intelligence.
AI is changing how students learn, how faculty teach, how employers think about skills, and how institutions imagine the future of work. But the more signals I see, the more I think AI is only part of a much larger story.
The bigger question may be this:
Are we preparing people for a future that is changing faster than the institutions designed to prepare them?
Over the past several weeks, I have gathered a cluster of signals around education and work.
Purdue University is moving toward an AI competency graduation requirement, asking students not just to use AI but to understand its limits, critically evaluate machine outputs, and adapt as the technology changes.
At the same time, the future of work is not simply becoming “more technical.” The signals I have been sharing point toward continued demand across technology, the skilled trades, human services, and other fields where technical ability has to coexist with communication, judgment, adaptability, and strong interpersonal skills.
And then there is a bigger structural question. Futurist Bryan Alexander’s idea of Peak Higher Ed asks whether colleges and universities may be moving out of an era built around constant growth. Enrollment pressures, demographic shifts, rising costs, declining public confidence, and AI are all challenging assumptions that shaped higher education for decades.
Taken together, these signals raise a much more interesting question than whether students should simply “learn AI.”
What if education itself has to change?
What if preparing people for the future means combining technical literacy, human skills, vocational pathways, academic learning, and the ability to adapt across a working life?
And what if colleges and universities have to rethink not only what they teach, but what role they are supposed to play in that future?
I unpack each of these signals more fully in my recent videos, including the Purdue AI competency requirement, the future skills students may need for work, and the possibility that higher education is entering a period of reinvention.
If you want the fuller context behind these signals, go watch the videos and then come back to this question:
If the institutions, technologies, occupations, and skills are all changing at the same time, what exactly are we preparing students for?
What this means for social work education
Social work should be paying close attention. Our profession sits directly at the intersection of many of these changes.
Technology will increasingly shape documentation, assessment, organizational decision-making, education, and service delivery. Social work students will need some level of technological competence.
At the same time, many of the capabilities at the heart of social work may become even more important: ethical judgment, critical thinking, communication, relationship-building, contextual understanding, and the ability to navigate complex human systems.
But perhaps the larger question is this:
Are we preparing social work students for the profession as it exists today, or for the different versions of social work that could emerge over the next decade?
Those are not necessarily the same thing.
Watching the signals together
This is why I find signal scanning useful.
A single signal does not tell us the future.
A university adopting an AI competency requirement does not tell us where education is headed. A jobs report does not tell us exactly what work will look like in 2035. And the possibility that higher education has peaked does not mean universities are destined to decline.
Signals are not predictions.
They are early signs that something may be changing.
Their value often becomes clearer when we put them beside one another.
And when I put these signals together, I keep coming back to one question:
Are our educational institutions prepared to change as quickly as the future they are supposed to prepare students for?
Meet Rosalie: A Clarity Filter for Parents Raising Teens in a Noisy World
If you've watched my recent video on clarity filters, you know I'm always on the lookout for people and tools that cut through the chaos so parents don't have to do it alone. This summer, like every summer, parents are wrestling with the same question: how do I keep my kids engaged without letting screens take over and the brain rot set in? I recently came across a tool that I think is worth every parent's attention.
A Clarity Filter Named Lisa Damour
Dr. Lisa Damour is a clinical psychologist who has spent over a decade studying teenagers. She's a three-time New York Times bestselling author, a contributor to CBS News and the New York Times, and she even consulted on Pixar's Inside Out 2. She is, in my opinion, one of the clearest clarity filters available to parents right now. And she just built something I hadn't seen before.
What Is Rosalie?
Rosalie is an AI chatbot, but not like ChatGPT or any other general AI you've used. Rosalie was built exclusively on Dr. Damour's own content: her books, articles, podcasts, and research. Nothing else. No random internet opinions. Just one expert's decade of carefully developed knowledge, available to you anytime. When I asked Rosalie about brain rot, it didn't give me a generic answer. It suggested what it called the SUN plan: Sleep, Unplugging, and Nature, and pointed me toward low-pressure learning activities like reading and hobbies. It also linked me directly to Dr. Damour's own podcasts and resources for deeper guidance. That's the difference. A general AI gives you general advice. Rosalie gives you Lisa Damour's advice.
The Better Your Question, the Better the Answer
One thing I found fascinating is that Rosalie responds to the quality of your prompting. When I asked more specific questions, like how to help a teen retain academic knowledge over the summer, the answers got more nuanced and more useful. So don't just ask surface-level questions. Give Rosalie some context about your situation and watch what happens.
Why This Matters
We are entering an era in which subject-specific AI tools built on trusted expert knowledge could completely change how parents access support. Instead of drowning in a sea of conflicting advice, you get one trusted voice, available at 2am, no appointment needed.
You can try Rosalie for yourself at drlisadamour.com/ask-rosalie
Have you tried a subject-specific AI chatbot yet? I'd love to know what you think with a comment here or out on my socials.
Technology & Social Work Education
Deconstructing the Report for Faculty, Program Directors, and Policy Educators
This four-part video series uses strategic foresight and futures thinking tools to deconstruct the 2025 CSWE Task Force on Technology and Social Work Education Report. Each video applies a different foresight tool, including STEEP analysis and the 2x2 scenario matrix, to help social work educators and practitioners understand what the report signals about where the profession is heading. The series is designed for faculty, program directors, field coordinators, and practitioners who want to think proactively about technology, AI, and the future of social work education before the 2029 EPAS revision shapes those decisions for them. Whether you are new to strategic foresight or looking to deepen your practice, these videos will give you both the tools and the context to engage meaningfully with the most consequential policy conversation in social work education right now. Imagine. Inspire. Innovate.
Clarity Filters
Thanks to Bob Johansen’s book Full Spectrum Thinking for introducing me to the concept of Clarity Filters. Check out my short video for more and you can always follow me on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube for more Futures and Foresight content.
Signal Scanning and the Future of Social Work Practice
It all begins with an idea.
How learning to read early indicators can help social workers — and social work educators — prepare for changes they haven't yet seen.
The future rarely arrives all at once; it appears first as signals for those prepared to notice.
In foresight practice, the goal isn't prediction — it's preparation. And preparation starts with learning to notice signals all about you. That's precisely the skill at the heart of signal scanning — and it's one that matters deeply for anyone invested in the future of social work.
What is signal scanning?
Signal scanning is the process of identifying and analyzing early indicators in the external environment that suggest emerging trends, technologies, or changes. These signals can come from almost anywhere: the research literature, news coverage, social media, or any other place where you notice a hint that something in society may soon shift.
“A signal is a specific example of the future in the present.”
Foresight practitioners — people who think professionally about what's coming — are constantly scanning for and collecting these signals. When you gather enough signals that point in the same direction, you can begin to identify what are called Key Drivers of Change: forces or factors that significantly influence present and future changes within an environment, an industry, or society at large. These drivers matter in foresight work because they help us identify where change is most likely to occur, which is exactly where strategic preparation should begin.
A familiar example: distance education
Consider how online social work education has evolved. In the early 2000’s, Florida State University began offering its MSW online. A handful of other programs followed. Across other disciplines, educators were experimenting with digital tools and online course delivery. Each of these programs — or a news article about the novelty of online social work education — represented a signal about the future of social work education.
Fast forward to the 2010s. Online Program Management companies like 2U and others emerged, supercharging the online education model. Course management systems became standard infrastructure across disciplines. Online learning technology has become a Key Driver of Change in K-12 education and in Higher Ed.
Then came COVID-19 — and online education didn't just grow, it became the only option practically overnight. For many schools and students, the transition was manageable precisely because the field had already been building that infrastructure for years. Signals had been accumulating. The driver was already in motion.
Why this matters for social work right now
The ability to scan for signals and identify drivers of change isn't just a nice-to-have skill for futurists. For social work educators and practitioners, it may be one of the most important professional competencies of the coming decade. Our field requires us to anticipate challenges, not just respond to them, and that means getting comfortable with ambiguity and learning to lead through it.
Here's a question worth sitting with: how many social work programs are currently preparing students for the realities of deepfake technology, AI-generated content, and the spread of mis- and disinformation?
Consider a signal that surfaced on NPR in March 2021, reporting on how individuals become entangled in conspiracy theories like QAnon — and what happens when they finally reckon with the deception. Relationships with family and friends had often been severely damaged by that point. Then comes the emerging role of the exit counselor, who helps individuals leave conspiracy networks, process the experience, rebuild relationships, and develop resilience against future manipulation. To me, this sounds remarkably like what we do in social work. That's not a coincidence. That's a signal.
Another signal is the rise of AI companions and the role these may play in relationships, marriage/divorce, mental health, and other areas. The signal in focus below provides a bit more information, but if we look back to the 2010’s and the rise of social media and how it has impacted every aspect of society, and “crept in” to social work practice. We have to pay attention to what AI, for better or for worse, is doing to society right now and what those implications might be for the future. Will social workers be counseling individuals who are on the brink of divorce because of AI infidelity? Probably. Will social workers be working with older adults who have an AI companion intervention to end social isolation and allow them to continue to age in their homes? Probably. Signal Scanning can help us see possible, probable, and preferred futures and when we can imagine those futures we can begin working now, in the present, to change or expedite those futures.
Signal in focus
The American Psychological Association reported in early 2026 that AI companion apps surged by 700% between 2022 and mid-2025 — and researchers are now actively investigating how these bonds affect social skills, intimacy, and mental health. One study found a troubling paradox: AI companions offer frictionless, unconditional support that appeals to lonely users, but over time they quietly raise the perceived cost of human relationships. People, the researchers found, simply stop reaching out.
Signals are not inherently good or bad. They are, as Marina Gorbis puts it, simply examples of the future already present. The internet transformed social work education in ways that made extraordinary things possible: active learning strategies that make educators better instructors, creative and media-based approaches to conveying social work skills and knowledge, and new ways of preparing students to use AI tools in practice.
Preparation is the point
Without proper preparation, students and their future clients could be at real risk. Some of those risks may come from the very technologies that make distance education possible. The digital tools that expand access to social work education are the same ones that can be weaponized to spread misinformation, manipulate vulnerable people, and fracture communities.
Signal scanning gives us a framework for taking this seriously before the crisis arrives — rather than scrambling to catch up after it does. The distance education example showed us what's possible when a field has built its capacity ahead of a disruption. The question for social work now is whether we're willing to apply that same foresight to the challenges that are already emerging on the horizon.
The signals are there. The question is whether we're paying attention.
What is a Social Work Futurist?
It all begins with an idea.
Simply put, a Social Work Futurist is a social worker who anticipates possible futures and shapes the present using the tools and techniques of futures thinking and strategic foresight.
The terms futurist and foresight practitioner are often used interchangeably, but they reflect slightly different ways of engaging with futures.
A futurist is broadly anyone who explores how trends, technologies, and social forces might shape or influence what comes next. Futurists often combine data, imagination, and storytelling to make sense of change and inspire new possibilities. They might work as researchers, consultants, educators, or artists—anyone who helps people think differently about the future.
A foresight practitioner, on the other hand, uses experiential, participatory, structured, or evidence-based methods to anticipate and plan for change. Foresight practitioners guide groups through processes like horizon scanning, trend mapping, and scenario planning to identify potential futures and prepare for them strategically in the present.
Futurists imagine and explore futures. Foresight practitioners help design and navigate them. But it’s not a binary, and there is much overlap between the two paradigms.
As a social work futurist, I seek to use imagination and critical inquiry to explore how emerging trends — from artificial intelligence and digital media to climate migration and demographic shifts — might transform the contexts in which people live and practice. I want folks to ask bold “What if…?” questions and envision possibilities that reflect equity, inclusion, and resilience. Using futures tools like signal scanning, the futures wheel, scenario planning and others, I seek to engage communities, students, and organizations in anticipating change and developing strategies that ensure social work remains relevant and responsive.
I believe all social workers have a futurist inside of them as they continually work to empower clients and communities and seek positive social change. Hope is a key aspect of futures and foresight practice! Social Work Futurists can act as bridge builders between the present and the possible — helping their clients ride the waves of change with intention, creativity, and courage. Stay tuned to this Blog as I share more about my work, and if you want to imagine, inspire, and innovate as a Social Work Futurist, let’s connect because futures work is done best when it’s done in community!