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World Social Work Day highlights a profession that operates across some of society’s most sensitive challenges, from child protection and survivor support, to ageing, poverty, and community care. Recently the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child urged Malaysia to strengthen professional social work, including in the public sector. why professional standards matter in social work. On #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Siti Hawa Ali, Representative of Reproductive Health Association of Kelantan (ReHAK), which is part of the Social Worker Alliance Malaysia.
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00:10hello and good evening i'm melissa idris welcome to consider this this is the show where we want
00:15you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day world social work
00:20day highlights a profession that operates across some of society's most sensitive challenges
00:26everything from child protection and survivor support to aging and poverty and community care
00:34however a recent un review has urged malaysia to strengthen its professional social work particularly
00:42in the public sector so let's discuss on the show today what does it mean to quote unquote
00:48professionalize social work and why is it important joining me to discuss this further is siti hawa ali
00:54who is a representative of the reproductive health association of flandan better known as reha she's
01:00which is part of the social worker alliance malaysia pon city thank you so much for joining me on the
01:06show
01:06today uh for for the viewers who may not be so familiar with uh social work maybe you can help
01:13explain what social workers actually do and why it's important um to to highlight this sector this this role
01:21thank you assalamualaikum melissa thank you very much for having me in this program really appreciate
01:27it um um basically i'll go straight to the to your questions yeah um what actually social workers do
01:35you know um i give you a short answer that may sounds full of jargons but we explain it more
01:41later
01:41yeah you know basically we are talking about you know uh protecting uh protecting children's and
01:48adults from an interpersonal harmful environment or communal environment you know a harmful situation
01:54so that is one of the job that is done by social workers at the same time they have to
02:00assess the
02:01situation to understand why it happens and how it can be resolved yeah how can be can how can they
02:08help the
02:08people and they you know in the process of helping they are supposed to empower the victims and the
02:14survivors you know and at the same time support the resource support them you know uh individually or in a
02:22small group or in small communities and trying to figure out what are the resources that they can help
02:27they can uh you know uh gather to to to support them and at the same time planning you know
02:35with them
02:35planning planning with them i think this is very important because we always use the word empowering
02:39right so it's actually working with them not just for them or hand it down to them you know but
02:45it's
02:45working with them you know because we do recognize individuals ability uh to overcome their situation and
02:53that is very important in social work because we do recognize their sense of self-determination their
02:57ability to to resolve their situation so you know within uh then they will have to find that
03:03resources within the social work agencies or working with the non-social agencies um you know
03:09basically to to support this uh community or individuals or the family i mean that it's a short
03:15one okay so so let's get into that and let's break it down what it means so um in a
03:20nutshell protecting
03:20children and adults or in just anyone from a harmful situation that i think to many people might they
03:28might assume that social work is is intuitive or a common sense and i wanted to um interrogate that
03:35assumption why is formal training why is professionalizing this um this job so essential
03:43uh what what what are the risks if we don't professionalize it and this is a familiar question
03:50that people ask what is it that social work do that other people cannot do right you know i mean
03:55because
03:56the word social is so so vague and so well so much use you know uh one thing i must
04:02highlight you know
04:02when we talk about social workers they are trained in the science of problem solving i think that is
04:09very important the science of problem solving so they have their own methods they have their own
04:14techniques they have their evidences to you know to help them to work with all their clients so that is
04:21very important you know the science of problem solving includes so many things you know they
04:26they don't just diagnose a problem you're talking about what kind of result that can be uh sustained
04:32once you intervene in that situation right so that is very important process yeah and um you know um
04:39and also you know you're talking about specifically how the individual can understand the situation you have
04:46all sorts of people everyone can have communication skills right but we taught them what is listening
04:52skill is all about right you know for semesters the students learn what listening skill why is it so
04:58important because you want to be able to know for sure you know what is going on in the people's
05:05life
05:05and then you will be able to tell them and to help them okay how do we move around here
05:10you know how do we
05:10move around the situation right and um uh at the same times we must differentiate social workers from
05:18the sympathetic emotional reaction i think that is very important you know when someone is you know
05:24looking at some other people with problem then you probably just feel very sympathetic you know and we
05:29we just it's not that i'm saying that social workers do not have emotion they do yeah but you know
05:34they do not have to react just emotionally they have to react factually you know they have and this
05:41is what science is all about you have to react factually you have to be person that actually have
05:46a strong resolve to to assist other people um you know and uh i think connecting the uh you know
05:54uh
05:55identifying the root causes of the problem is critical right i mean this will take a long time who can
06:01find the root causes of poverty you know for for decades or centuries we talk about this yeah but
06:07we do need to to find what are the root causes faced by that family i mean i have a
06:12case example to show
06:13to share if you want to yeah and uh we want people to know how they can you know sustain
06:18their efforts to
06:20overcome the situation over time yeah i think that that is also important um and you know the thought
06:26process of what social workers who are trained is is also important they are trained to think
06:33analytically they are thing to think critically and to be able to see how they can resolve all this how
06:39they can connect all the resources including human resources you know to help people to be able to stand
06:45up i think that is basically some of the things we did one city i'm curious now what was the
06:50case study
06:50that you wanted to to um share with the case that we discussed uh two weeks ago you know i'm
06:57still
06:57actively supporting uh one-stop crisis centers and all that yeah uh i'll give you an example in the
07:03audience a case of 11 years old girl who are physically and emotionally uh you know abused by her mother
07:11a biological mother right and uh molested by her stepfather right and at the same time in the family
07:18there's a few undocumented children because the status of marriage was not registered yeah sent and
07:25the status of citizenship of the mother is you know also a problem problematic father has a stepfather
07:31has a serious criminal record you know armed robbery and currently in prison you know and step and
07:37biological father who was around before are also substance abuse i mean this is for social workers this
07:44sounds like a very common scenario we have seen this many times but we cannot be numbed of uh because
07:50of it and there's no two cases similar right you know so if you're talking about this situation and i
07:57just want to share with the audience then the the number of social workers involved to help this case to
08:05assist this situation this case you have medical social workers then you have uh social child protectors
08:11you have case family case management workers you have prison social workers right these are all
08:17different fields in social work that work together at a different arena yeah right and at the same time
08:24they will have to work with other agencies pdrm health registration registration and all these people
08:30you know to to help one particular family and to save them to save a child and this is very
08:37important
08:38we are talking about the values of human being here you know the values of human being so it you
08:44know if
08:45we keep talking about the cost and you know and then always there's an argument is it economical or not
08:51but we're talking about the values of human being you just imagine that child before she came to us you
08:57know how many years she has faced this situation you know and how is she going to grow up what
09:03sort of
09:03individual how can she resolve that situation behind her you know right so this is how important it is
09:09we are trying to get family individual to be able to live a dignified life and that that is so
09:16important
09:16for human beings i think you know so so i'm so happy that you laid out for us how many
09:22social workers are
09:23involved in just one case um which is why we have had the social work profession bill drafted and ready
09:31for
09:32for many years i think it's been more than 10 years in the in the works um but from what
09:37what i understand
09:38the last version of the bill it only focused on um the private sector can you talk to me about
09:46why
09:46it's important to include public sector social workers in the bill yeah you know uh thank you naturally
09:55you know uh when you talk about social work bills we are not just talking about the bill itself we
10:02are
10:03talking about social welfare system in the country you know what behind it is the social welfare system
10:08in the country you know so we are talking about you know how the state represent the idea of social
10:16welfare system in the country if the state think that having unqualified people is good enough to assist
10:23people you know of course i will be unhappy and very you know challenge that but if that is what
10:29the
10:29state here then you know the state is actually we can say the state do not recognize that the people
10:35who are in need yeah right and uh i think this is very important yeah because the state is the
10:42major
10:42employer of social workers in this country we cannot spend times of parliamentarian times and all that
10:48just for the sake of a very small number of social workers in the in the uh you know cso
10:53you know the
10:54private sectors i think very rarely have a social workers i think so far that i know there's only one
10:59private hospital that has social worker you know right you know so why are we spending time energy and
11:06all that just to control one sort you know one small group of social workers whereas the majority of the
11:12social workers are actually in the public sector and they are the one that define give an imagination
11:19of what social work is all about in this country so that is very critical for them to be included
11:25in the social work deal um 17th march is world social work day which i think is really important
11:34because i not a lot of people understand the importance of social work what message would you
11:39like to send to the audience and hopefully the policy makers who may be watching um so that they
11:45better understand the importance of social work right like i say just now you know i i will go broadly
11:52when we talk about social work day you know we we in malaysia must move away from a family-based
11:59welfare system to state coordinated system you know that takes more responsibility you know especially in this
12:07government you know under madani that talk about you know good governance i think good governance part
12:14of the main element of good governance means that the job is delivered by people who are qualified to do
12:19the job i think that is very critical for us to remind ourselves you know uh so it is therefore
12:25i think
12:25you know what i want to tell what what i want to have to happen in malaysia is that for
12:31the state and for the
12:32people to invest in family please we need to invest in family we cannot just keep having you know uh
12:39you
12:40know you know you know a situation where family is too challenged you know in this present time that's
12:46why i think we have to move away from welfare family-based welfare system to a of it is to
12:51more formalized
12:52system you know that actually understand the whole situation the family current family situation
12:58the current in the current family institution is so challenged you know so if you are on the ground
13:04you actually can see that they are so challenged and therefore we must put all our effort to invest
13:10in family so that we have a better you know future for our society right thank you so much for
13:16speaking
13:16with me city hawa ali from a rehab there also part of the social worker alliance malaysia we're going
13:22to take a quick break here on consider this we'll be back with more stay tuned
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