The Malaysian Insight

NOW is the time to reintroduce a law to register and regulate social work, which is more essential than ever in the unprecedented situation of a pandemic , said the Malaysian Association of Social Workers (MASW).

The group said such a law was timely as the community seeks to recover from the ravages of the coronavirus.
 
The Social Work Profession Bill was to have been tabled in Parliament last December but was put on hold
 
“The Covid-19 pandemic will inevitably create post-social concerns, for example, unemployment, dropouts mental health, domestic violence, and technology-induced vulnerability,” said MASW honorary secretary Tina Yap Li Yan.

“When social workers are regulated, there is a great chance for effective service management and quality of service in practice,” she told The Malaysian Insight.

The law will also define the profession and clear the misconception that social workers are volunteers.

“Social workers must know how to facilitate and advocate for change, to build resiliency and social functioning of the person or community as a whole.

“However, volunteers are not bound by the social work profession’s ethics, values and principles,” she said.

Confusion over the two roles could cause harm if unqualified or untrained people address complex situations such as domestic violence, which may require psycho-social intervention and case management practice, Yap said.

She said government helpline Talian Kasih received 2,319 complaints of domestic violence this year.

Callers also needed aid for homelessness (473), welfare (71,185), counselling (4,305), disabilities (672) and elderly (368).

Yap said Social Welfare Department officers faced a bigger, more challenging caseload due to the coronavirus.

MASW worked with the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry on the drafting of the bill, which had bipartisan support last year but was not tabled in December as planned.

In June, new Women, Family and Community Development Minister Rina Mohd Harun announced that the bill was expected to be tabled by the end of this year

She said the bill had been amended for improvement and been handed over to the Attorney-General’s Chambers for perusal.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of the enactment, MASW, Unicef Malaysia and the Social Welfare Department are training social workers.

There is one social worker for every 8,576 people in Malaysia, according to the Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit.

In comparison, the ratio of social worker to population is 1:490 in the United States, 1:1,040 in Australia, and 1:3,448 in Singapore.

The Child Rights Coalition Malaysia, in its child rights status report, recommended that the government increase the number of social workers.

 Yap said career demand would grow when when the bill was passed to recognise and regulate the profession. – December 1, 2020.