Why Social Workers and System Thinkers Belong in Civic Tech
A group of people huddled over a laptop, color coded post-it notes, and poster board while collaborating on journey mapping workflows and the user experience for a service design project.
A Short Take for Civic Tech and Digital Service Design Leaders
When digital transformation stalls in government or healthcare and human service organizations, there is an instinct to look for where barriers presented in the technology or change management plan (if there is one). Wrong vendor. Wrong system. Wrong timeline.
But, the more common culprit is who was in the room, or who wasn’t, when the decisions were made.
When organizations lack the right skills in the right roles, they commission systems that don’t match how service is actually delivered. Products are built without consideration as to how they are used within workflows. Products are implemented without consideration for the real user experience. Data is generated without understanding how to inform decisions or drive social impact. Digital and data literacy gaps create strategy problems. The cost of these gaps result in wasted investment and missed opportunities for meaningful collaboration and participatory engagement that connects lived experience with the systemic structures. Ultimately, without intentional collaboration and inclusivity of lived experience, there are increased risks in worse outcomes and experiences for the people who depend on the services being delivered as well as for those delivering them.
The Missing Voices in Civic Tech and Service Design
Who do you think of or what roles come to mind when asked, who leads digital strategy? The answer is usually: the IT team, the vendor, or maybe a committee with a few critical members who report to the Chief Information Officer. Typically, we see a top-down model driving decisions in how service design is practiced, informs policy, and services are implemented.
Who wasn’t included in the meetings or decision making? Who was not included in the gap analysis or exploring solutions or sharing the current workarounds to inform improvement projects? How were frontline staff engaged? Take healthcare settings as an example where data driven decisions and continuous process improvement is critical to patient safety, quality care, and cost-efficiency. How might frontline staff in healthcare settings be included in the participatory process in improving technology and service design?
The nurse who knows the current electronic healthcare system contributes to bottlenecks in patient access.
The social worker who has insights into how the lack of interoperability across systems contributes to administration burden and delays in case management services to help people complete applications for housing, benefits, and verification of income.
The physician who has identified potential safety risks in digital interventions and has insights into safety protocols.
The peer support worker who can explain exactly where the referral pathway breaks down because the digital experience wasn’t designed with the people who have trust issues toward the government or healthcare systems in mind.
These people are the systems thinkers who hold the human-centered experiences. They hold mental models of complex, interdependent care journeys that no document or service design toolkit fully captures. They understand what “user need” actually means at the point of initial engagement, point of care, and exit from service in a way that no amount of “current state” and post-implementation survey can reconstruct.
Frontline staff bring voice to ethical concerns, anticipated risks, and broader social outcomes. If they are consulted, it’s often late and filtered through layers of leadership and project management. That’s a structural failure and a participatory design failure for service designers who are doing the work of public design without including the people who can not only bring unique insights, but help define problems, priorities, and assumptions.
This early-stage involvement can result in generating ideas that enhance prototyping, enable co-creation and cross sector or cross discipline collaboration, and orient outcomes that go beyond a final product – but an upstream approach to transformational changes that can be scaled deep and wide that help inform improved design, innovation, and policy.
Social Workers as Essential Partners in Civic Tech
Civic technology and digital service design combines technology with policy to create user-friendly platforms. This approach requires a deep understanding of user needs, testing solutions, and applying human-centered design to improve accessibility and efficiency. Social workers are essential partners in the civic tech space by:
bringing unique perspectives that can help address the gaps in understanding the human experience of navigating fragmented, interconnected systems
bringing anti-oppressive practices and uphold the dignity of every person
holding ethical responsibilities to the broader society
promoting sensitivity to and knowledge about past harms that impact trust and engagement while fostering deeper understanding and empathy
seeking to resolve conflicts of interest between the human experience and the broader interests of “efficiency” in a socially responsible manner
What Social Workers Bring that IT, Product Manager, and AI Agent Can’t Replicate
Based on my experience as a social worker (micro and macro levels) working in human services and government, I know firsthand how technology and design can either hinder or enhance the experience for those being served and for those carrying out the operations of public service. Improving operational efficiency is possible through sustainable technology infrastructures, integrated systems, and collaborative relationships (to support that change management plan). I am proud of my contributions in technology strategy and innovation, systems integration and performance improvement, data compliance, policy design, and building scalable infrastructures of care for clients and staff. I hadn’t considered myself a designer, but I understand my background in service design is rooted in systems thinking, social work ethics, and empathy.
I’ve helped inform clinical workflows for primary and behavioral health integration playbooks, policy development for national sterile syringe programs, and integrated dashboards to support improved population health and program outcomes through targeted outreach and engagement with Veterans experiencing homelessness and needing access to overdose prevention and suicide prevention resources. I’ve helped lead the adoption of technology solutions to integrate data, optimize workflows and collaboration, and inform the design for dashboards, digital toolkits, and visual management tools to support knowledge management for government healthcare leaders. My experience as well as reflecting on the experience and contributions of other social worker colleagues leads me to share what social workers bring to the civic tech and digital service design space:
Proximity to the people systems are built for. Social workers have various roles that involve working alongside populations. As a case manager, they know which forms are redundant, what systems are not interoperable, what digital platforms assume someone has a smartphone or reliable internet, and what application processes assume people have access to required documentation even after surviving a natural disaster or fleeing domestic violence. That lived experience is irreplaceable user research.
A practice framework built around dignity and trauma-informed care. A professional code of ethics is at the core of social work and the profession holds a dual focus on individual well-being and the well-being of society. Social workers are sensitive to diversity, center the dignity and worth of the person, pursue social change with and on behalf of people who have been oppressed and harmed through forms of social injustice, and are trained to raise questions and practice discernment when challenges arise in relation to informed consent, confidentiality, and other ethical considerations.
Systems thinking that connects people to structures. Engaging people as partners in the helping process demonstrates value and recognition that human relationships are central to meaningful and sustainable change. Social workers aim to ensure people have access to needed information, services, and resources and work to help people overcome barriers to connecting to structures that allow meaningful participation. The systems thinking skills set is a reflection of social workers being cognizant of the dual responsibility to the people and to the broader society.
Trust and accountability within communities. Social workers who have been working on the frontline often already have relationships with the communities that civic tech is trying to reach. These are often the same communities that have historical and valid reasons to distrust government technology. Social workers can serve as translators, advocates, and accountability holders, helping ensure that community voice and lived experience shapes design and informs policy rather than being consulted (and extracted from) after the fact.
Ethics as a governance upgrade. Social workers operate under rigorous ethical and legal obligations. Social workers bring a level of accountability that helps fill gaps in civic tech and digital service design. For example, social workers have obligations to the public that include a duty of care, mandatory reporting, confidentiality, informed consent, supervision and consultation, conflicts of interest, and cultural competence.
Final Thoughts
My hope is that civic tech recognizes that the hardest problems aren’t always technical, but they are relational, ethical, and political. Social workers offer a principled foundation for decision making not only design but how, with, and for whom. Social workers understand that when design fails the most vulnerable or underserved, it fails us all. To civic tech and digital design leaders: when you’re standing up a service, reimagining a public system, or leading a digital transformation effort, remember social workers bring more than lived-in knowledge of communities they serve and systems they help navigate.
Social workers bring a practice of ethics that holds the line when speed, scale, or cost pressures tempt a design process that looks reactive rather than responsive, or a process that causes harm before engaging with the right people at the right time to get better (and safer) outcomes. Include a social worker and not only will you build with them, but they’ll help you identify other missing voices in the room. You won’t just get better products – you get more accountable products because your design process is more accountable to the people too.
I’m Andi Phillips, a licensed clinical social worker with nearly two decades of experience across education, community, and health care settings including over ten years in federal health care leadership. Before starting Desired Futures in 2025, I served as the first social worker Chief Well-being Officer for the federal government, leading innovative strategies aligned with the Reduce Employee Burnout and Optimize Organizational Thriving (REBOOT), a nationwide initiative to develop and implement interventions to reduce burnout among federal health care workers. Today, I am helping organizations transform workplace culture and organizational health to create desired futures rooted in care, creativity, and connection. I also provide therapy to individuals and couples in Illinois who identify as high-achieving professionals, LGBTQ, or neurodivergent who may be struggling with mental health, identity, relationships, or work/life balance and are seeking clarity, confidence, and sense of purpose. You can learn more about my work at Desired Futures Counseling & Consulting.
