In dealing with child abuse cases, does removing a child from the family actually solve the problem? Will the child be separated from the parents forever?
When someone is poor, will they be forever dependent on financial aid, or is there an opportunity for them to grow?
How do you help drug addicts and ex-convicts to integrate back into society? What is the support that you can give to those suffering from mental illness? Every issue has its own complexity and a way to deal with it. It takes people with proper knowledge, compassion, and skills to be able to deal with these issues.
These people are called Social Workers – a practice-based profession combined with academic disciplines.
President of the Malaysian Association of Social Workers (MASW), Dr Teoh Ai Hua, said that in dealing with these cases, be it isolated cases or systemic cases, social workers must look beyond aid and prevention in order to promote long-term empowerment.
Social workers are trained to provide short-term, medium-term, and long-term plans in addressing an issue. They must also look from a development perspective. He also explained that social workers never take the problem and solve it themselves. The empowerment that they provide is to help their clients find ways to solve their problems so that they can continue to function in their own environment.
Thus, certain issues require certain sets of skills and knowledge. That explains why social work requires a university education. The knowledge, compassion, and skills that this education provides will ensure students’ competency when they work within a complex system.
According to Dr Teoh, at the diploma level, they learn to detect issues from various cases. They also learn to come up with intervention strategies to address certain issues their clients face. At the degree level, they learn more about policies, and a lot of critical thinking is involved. At this level, they still work very closely with their clients.
“Then, at the master’s level, social workers work like architects. They look into advanced theories and advanced skills, rehabilitation, policy development, and programme formulation. At this level, social workers must understand from the lower level up to the policy level,” he said.
Dr Teoh said this standardised training or syllabus is not just in Malaysia but internationally as well. As such, social workers in Malaysia will not be too far off from international standards. This would create job opportunities overseas for Malaysian social workers.
In fact, social work is a growing global sector. According to the British Council, Singapore needs 2,000 more social workers by 2030. Construction Market Insight for 2024 also released data revealing that social work was listed as the second most in-demand sector in Europe, behind nursing in the top spot. Among the countries included are Spain, France, Italy, and Germany.
In China, with the government making efforts to eradicate poverty and to improve the living standards of its citizens, trained social workers are needed to fulfil the country’s social policy.
So, why are social workers important?
It lies in the reality we live in. It is understandable that as the world advances, society becomes increasingly complex. In the effort to cope with this, more people find themselves in vulnerable situations.
With that being said, social work is a highly demanding career. Interest alone will not suffice to stay in the career for a long time.
“You might start with an interest. However, what drives you to stay on and move on to develop more advanced skills and knowledge is no longer just an interest. It has to be something that you feel you want to do,” he said.
Dr Teoh was involved in social work because of his love for helping people. He did not know anything about social work until 1997 when Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) wanted to start a Bachelor’s in Social Work programme. He proceeded to apply for a Master’s in Social Work.
Dr Teoh graduated with a Bachelor of Public Administration the year before. When he went for an interview for the master’s programme, his dean, who was his interviewer, was surprised to see him. The dean gave him the green light to go for a Master’s in Social Work.
Dr Teoh got a scholarship from the university and went to the University of Kent in Canterbury, United Kingdom, to do his master’s. There, he learned about social work, but mainly in Europe and the UK.
Coincidentally, the then president of MASW, Associate Professor Siti Hawa Ali, did the same programme as him. However, at that time, she had completed her studies, had gone back to Malaysia, and was teaching at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). Dr Teoh gained some understanding of social work in Malaysia from her work.
Since he learned social work in the UK, he had little knowledge about social work in Malaysia. Luckily for him, after he completed his master’s programme, UUM had a special opening for those already serving in the government.
“So, government servants could get study leave and do a degree in UUM, and quite a number from the welfare department, prison department, and law enforcement studied social work.
“I learned a lot from them, actually. It was not me teaching them; I could only share with them the theories and methods in social work. However, what social work is and how social work is practised in Malaysia, they shared with me. So, I felt blessed that I could learn more from those who are already practising,” he said.
It did not take long for him to join MASW. Since then, he gained more knowledge about social workers from different fields – the welfare department, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), hospitals, and other universities as well.
He is serving as the president of MASW for the term 2023 – 2025.
Is social work widely accepted in Malaysia?
When it comes to the need, there is no dispute on that. However, because Malaysia does not have a clear welfare policy that requires social workers, no one is certain where the position of social workers is and how many the country needs.
He explained that the UK has clear welfare policies, putting social workers as part of the professional manpower, ensuring that the welfare policy runs as it should. In Malaysia, since the current welfare policies are mainly based on families supporting families and communities supporting communities, the government would like to utilise more volunteers.
“They do not see that social workers are required in big numbers because social workers are costly. We are not like in the health setting, where the country will know how many doctors we need. There is a global kind of indicator or benchmark, so we want to move into that,” he pointed out.
However, he believed that Malaysia would eventually need a lot of social workers to fulfil the country’s welfare or social policy. Volunteers are great, but they are not trained to handle complex issues. How soon? No one knows.
“We are going towards an aged society very soon, but we are still not sure about what to do about it. Is it about services? But if it is about services, then who are the personnel or the manpower that run the services? What skill sets are needed? This is something that I think we have not really ironed out,” he said.
Now, of course, MASW is fighting for Parliament to pass the Social Work Profession Bill, which aims to formally recognise social work as a regulated profession. The tabling of the bill in Parliament has been postponed for about 15 years.
“We are at the final stage of trying to iron out the regulation – should the law regulate everybody regardless of whether they are in government or non-government? We are still trying to convince the government that it should be for everybody,” he said.
The Diploma in Social Work is a two-and-a-half-year programme accredited by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA).
It covers three components – knowledge, skills, and values. Students will be exposed not only to theories but also to practical experiences throughout the programme to enable them to become competent social workers in the future.
Graduates with this certification are not only eligible to work in Malaysia, whether in non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or government agencies, but also have job opportunities abroad.
