Signal Scanning and the Future of Social Work Practice
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.
