Memorandum for the Advisory Committee on Social Work Training and Manpower Planning (ACSWTMP)
Training and Development of Social Workers in an Era of Change
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the training and development needs of social workers in an era of change and seek Members’ views on enhancing the existing provision to meet the new demands on social workers.
Changes for New Mindset, Approaches and Skills for Welfare Services
2. With rapid social, economic and demographic changes, both locally and globally, Hong Kong society has experienced ups and downs in the past decade.
Social issues have become more complicated and diverse. The poor economic performance has aggravated the predicaments of the people in need. The number of domestic violence cases, including child abuse, spouse battering, elder abuse and neglect, and suicides, increases; and the problems of juvenile delinquency and substance abuse intensify and arouse much public concern. Furthermore, more people are in financial hardship or feel pessimistic about their financial security.
3. Hong Kong’s economy has yet to come out of its doldrums and the recent spate of layoffs, suicides and homicide-suicides has added to the gloom.
Controversies over right of abode claimants and social security beneficiaries have not helped our society that is already witnessing weakened solidarity and emerging divisiveness. The social work profession has an important role to play in helping individuals as well as in building a more caring community. In recent years, the social welfare sector has responded promptly with the aims of providing more efficient and effective services geared towards the changing needs of the community in terms of both intervention and cost. Service reviews have been conducted in different programme areas, for example, the Fundamental Expenditure Review on

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Youth, the family services review and the review on development of integrated care services for elders. All these have pointed to the need to re-prioritize and re-engineer the delivery process through provision of more holistic and integrated services and maximization of existing resources. The Social Welfare Department (SWD) has also repositioned itself to face new challenges in the planning, development, delivery and monitoring of social welfare services. Likewise, the Hong Kong Council of Social
Service (HKCSS) has undergone an organizational restructuring.
4. The introduction of the Service Performance and Monitoring System
(SPMS), the Lump Sum Grant (LSG) subvention mode and the quality-based competitive bidding have brought about a new operating environment for the welfare sector. The objectives are to offer more customer-focused, output-driven and cost-effective services. The flexibility in deployment of resources and emergence of positive competition unleash the forces of innovation, initiative and value-addedness in the delivery of services. The formulation of the information technology (IT) strategy and establishment of the Joint Committee on IT for the Social Welfare Sector have also accelerated the effective use of IT in both the backroom support functions, such as human resource management and financial management, as well as in direct delivery of services.
5. Facing all these evolving and pressing social issues and demands in an era of change, social workers need to have new mindset, approaches and skills to deliver their services in a qualitative, outcome-measurable and cost-effective way.
Challenges for Social Workers
6. Emerging from the changes in the sector and the community, social workers are faced with the following challenges and new demands in terms of mentality, knowledge and skills –
(a) Embracing change

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Readiness to embrace change will be the most crucial attribute for social workers. As helping professionals, social workers need to have a good understanding of the environment before approaching and working with the customers. As change agents, they should take pride in this role, and have the ability and readiness to embrace change important to the profession.
An embracing change mindset will enhance their alertness to the emergence of community problems, responsiveness to the changing service needs, and acceptance of new roles and approaches in service delivery.
(b) Striving for continuous improvement
As socioeconomic conditions keep changing and new social issues evolve, social workers must react promptly and improve the services continuously with new approaches and skills. They should take ownership for continuous professional improvement to enrich their intervention and competitiveness. In this regard, the Social Workers Registration Board
(SWRB) plans to introduce continuous professional development as a requirement for re-registration in the context of the amendment of the
SWRB Ordinance.
(c) Adopting a flexible, prompt, innovative, outcome-focused and result-oriented approach
For a caring profession, assistance to the needy has to be prompt and should meet customers’ needs with flexibility and innovation. Moving away from input, rule-based, compliance mentality to an output, evidence-based, outcome-focused and result-oriented approach is what social workers should adopt. In practice, service providers who hitherto operated within an established and pre-determined mode now have to think and devise new modalities and approaches to secure the services, and then to deliver them according to the proposals made.
(d) Promoting customer-centred service integration

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Driven by the customer-centred focus, welfare services are moving towards greater integration and a one-stop approach. Services for youth, families and elders have been heading towards this end; and in the new town of
Tung Chung, integrated services with a family-focused holistic approach are now rendered. Social workers need to be familiar and knowledgeable in delivering a spectrum of services, rather than a fragment of it and refer the customers to other workers or agencies.
(e) Strengthening multidisciplinary or cross-sectoral collaboration
To effectively tackle social problems of growing complexity and widespread concern, a multidisciplinary or cross-sectoral approach is necessary so that expertise and contribution from various professions and organizations can be maximized and well co-ordinated. The prevention and management of child abuse has demonstrated the effectiveness of such an approach. Looking ahead, more and closer collaboration between the welfare sector and other sectors, such as health, education, legal and district communities is to be further promoted.
(f) Adopting a more entrepreneurial spirit
Resources are always limited and welfare spending is no exception. With the fiscal deficit now facing the SAR Government, a drive to do more with less will become an integral part of any public service provider, and social workers in the public setting (SWD and NGOs included) are no exception.
Entrepreneurship means using new ways to maximize productivity and effectiveness. To meet this challenge, social workers need to have a better appreciation of the costing of services, the measurement of output and outcome and the confidence to shift resources around to do the most good for the community.
Competency-based Training for New Mindset, Approaches and Skills

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7. All the above place new and quite different demands on our social work professionals. Competent social workers need to be exposed to broader areas beyond the traditional social work purview, have to be multi-skilled, while complemented by specialization in specific service areas. In view of the challenges in the welfare sector, training and development for social workers should be geared towards the needed competencies to ensure that social workers have the new mindset, approaches and skills to enhance their professionalism and competency in their work and keep themselves abreast of the changing demands and new developments in the profession.
Some competencies considered essential are -
(a) Professional knowledge
Problems of domestic violence, suicide, drug abuse, youth gangs and mental health are areas becoming more prominent and requiring more intensive professional input. Their etiology involves complicated dynamics including a person’s handling of emotions, relationships and crisis; and the intervention demands complicated skills and sensitivity.
Advanced and specialized skills are required for social workers to work with customers facing these problems effectively as well as to manage other changing social issues.
(b) Language ability
While communication is the major tool in social service provision, language ability is an important competency for social workers. Effective written communication skill, which entails and reflects logical and sound conceptual thinking, facilitates the work of social workers with customers and collaboration with others. Other concerns, such as legal requirement of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, especially in the context of the development of Clientele Information System, and the importance of putting things in context, should be addressed to when writing case recording, reports and related correspondence. Moreover, in view of the new mechanism in services allocation, the ability to write quality service proposals for bidding of new services will be an edge and the first step to start off a service business.

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(c) IT competency
IT literacy has become a basic skill for professionals in the modern world.
As IT continuously advances, our IT literacy should catch up with the times.
For better use of IT to achieve higher productivity and efficiency, more system application of IT has to be developed and IT training should be pointing to that direction.
(d) Planning and Management
Planning and management skill is as important as professional skill.
Apart from general organizational management, skills in resources planning, project management, performance monitoring, service evaluation as well as planning and co-ordination are all required for present and future service delivery.
(e) Collaborative skills
These refer to the competency in working with others to achieve a win-win situation. Within an organization, teamwork has become a common work approach, especially in managing complicated tasks. Outside an organization, the competency includes the ability and readiness in networking with other individuals, groups or organizations for best use of community resources, forming strategic alliances for timely delivery of well-coordinated services, and promoting multidisciplinary or cross-sectoral collaboration for optimal district services planning.
(f) Research and evaluative skills
Research establishes the empirical base for identifying service needs and designing appropriate service models geared towards the community or neighbourhood characteristics. Evaluative skills are called for, such as skills in programme evaluation, gauging the effectiveness of intervention and identifying areas for improvement and directions for more focused and

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(g) Continuous learning
To put continuous professional improvement and learning into practice, social workers must first learn how to learn. This competency includes ability in setting clear and achievable objective, motivating oneself to learn, acquiring effective learning and data collection / analysis skills, and time management for learning, etc.
(h) Professional values and ethics
Values and ethics, which underpin the social work profession, are so fundamental that social workers should constantly re-examine and practise them to ensure that they meet current day expectations and standards.
Bombarded by different values and ideologies in an open, pluralistic and rapidly changing society, social workers should more readily, consciously and critically reflect on their values and missions to keep the profession responsive for the advancement of the society.
Existing Provision of Pre-Service Education and In-Service Training
8. For over four decades, with the efforts of all concerned, training and development for social workers has been solidly grounded and well developed in the local context to supply adequate manpower for the community. Apart from the social work training institutions (TIs), which offer both pre-service and in-service training programmes, SWD, HKCSS, individual NGOs and other professional bodies, such as the Hong Kong Social Workers Association (HKSWA), also share the mission of providing just-in-time and advanced in-service training for social workers.
Pre-service education

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9. Pre-service social work education is provided by local TIs, which offer qualifying social work programmes from sub-degree to master degree levels. As a first level training, the undergraduate programmes adopt a generalist approach so that graduates can take up posts in various service settings at the entry level. To fulfil the statutory requirements for graduates to be eligible for registration as social workers, the programmes are accredited by the SWRB, with the curricula encompassing at least the following core subject areas -
(a) Human behaviour and social environment;
(b) Social welfare systems and social policies;
(c) Social work practices and theories;
(d) Social sciences / liberal arts knowledge; and
(e) Field practicum.
In addition, as university level curricula, these programmes are also broad-based, covering generic skills on language, IT, personal effectiveness and knowledge on general education.
10. Although the training is generic in nature, the contents are constantly updated in the context of current social welfare issues, such as social problems and welfare reform measures (and it is hoped that the changes and demands described in this paper would assist the TIs in their constant review of the curriculum) to equip graduates with the needed background and competencies for practice. Constrained by the limited curriculum space, it is, however, difficult for TIs to have in-depth and comprehensive coverage on every concern in the sector. Instead, the second level training, i.e. the post-graduate level, with focus more on advanced study of social work theories, management, research and evaluative skills, and critique of policies and service delivery systems, will address more deeply contemporary welfare issues and social work practices. Specialization in particular areas, such as family work, mental health or social service administration, is common on these programmes.
In-service training and development

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11. The SWD, HKCSS, and individual NGOs are the major planners / providers of in-service training and development for social workers. In addition, TIs, their executive arms for continuing education and professional centres, and professional associations also supplement training on a need basis. The training resources primarily come from the Government, funding bodies under the management of the SWD (e.g. Lotteries Fund, Social Work Training Fund), NGOs and social workers’ own contribution.
12. The in-service training activities, which are usually short-term, are largely on the following areas -
(a) Knowledge and skills necessary to meet basic job requirements, e.g. induction courses or various services;
(b) Training on more advanced knowledge and skills to improve service quality or handle difficult tasks, e.g. refresher training, clinical supervision programme, training for psychiatric social workers; and
(c) Activities promoting personal development, effectiveness and raising quality of job-related performance, e.g. training on stress management, IT, change management, etc.
13. Predominantly in the form of courses / seminars / workshops, in-service training is also delivered in peer group learning mode to nurture the atmosphere for mutual learning, and in electronic means to offer flexibility for self-learning anytime, anywhere. For example, the SWD has set up district clinical supervision teams and established an e-learning centre to encourage self-learning online among its staff.
14. To meet the training needs arising from the social welfare reforms, systematic training on service quality standards has been launched since 1999 to help the sector acquire the knowledge and skills on service performance and monitoring system. In 2000-01, the Help Centre under the LSG Steering Committee was set up to assist NGOs in handling issues arising from the LSG environment. Resources are also available to support training for NGOs to strengthen their management skills under the new subvention system.

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15. To make training more relevant to work, training for the Social Work
Officer Grade in the SWD has been based on the core competencies of grade members, which form a road map for officers to plan for acquisition of the needed knowledge, skills, abilities and attitude to ensure effective delivery of their responsibilities.
These competencies are:
(a) Professional Knowledge;
(b) Planning and Resource Management;
(c) Analysis and Decision Making;
(d) Leadership and Team Building;
(e) Customer Focus;
(f) Communication Skills;
(g) Staff Management and Development; and
(h) Personal Effectiveness.
Interface between In-service and Pre-service Training and Development
16. To provide co-ordinated and comprehensive training and development for the sector, there are mechanisms / measures to facilitate interface among the SWD,
TIs, the HKCSS, NGOs and professional bodies. As major training providers / co-ordinators in the sector, SWD and HKCSS have regular communication channels on training and development issues.
17. The ACSWTMP provides the needed forum for the Government (i.e. the
SWD and the concerned bureaux), the sector (i.e. TIs, NGOs, the HKCSS and the
HKSWA) and professionals from other disciplines to address issues on social work training and development. The ACSWTMP also provides SWD with the opportunity to present its new development, so as to facilitate discussions and collaboration in the context of training and development.
Way Ahead

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18. Training and development of social workers has been an important pillar for the smooth and effective implementation of social welfare policies. To demonstrate the Government’s commitment in improving staff training and development in the welfare sector, SWD has pledged in the 2001 Policy Commitments to accord priority in the coming year to improving the humanware. Among other training initiatives, new resources will be available for --
(a) enhanced training on change management, multi-skilled training and advanced / refresher training by 2004 for 800 family social workers to meet the new challenges arising from the Family Welfare Services Review;
(b) strengthened training packages in 2002-04 for 600 professionals to better equip them in handling / identifying cases involving child abuse and domestic violence; and
(c) enhanced training in 2002-04 for 400 social workers handling cases involving attempted suicide / suicidal tendency which may lead to family tragedies.
19. To echo the Government’s policy initiatives and encourage continuous improvement and cost-effectiveness, the Lotteries Fund recently adopts
‘Improving human-ware in the social welfare sector’ and
‘Continuous quality improvement and increased cost-effectiveness in service delivery’ as the themes of 2002-03 for support of time-limited experimental projects.
20. Whilst training and development should be more competency-based, as identified above, and to be revamped with changes in the sector, its provision would take into account the importance of flexibility, promptness, learner-led orientation, ownership-taking and cost-effectiveness. Towards these themes, SWD has tried to contract out training courses, for which the market is mature, to competent vendors; and has started to allocate more training resources to its enhanced District Social
Welfare Offices to encourage prompt training and just-in-time learning to meet districts’ needs and plans in enhancement of human resources.
21. Regarding co-ordination, the existing mechanisms for interface among users, planners, training providers, professional bodies and other concerned parties,

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Advice Sought
22. Members are invited to -
(a) note the changes impacting the social welfare sector (paragraphs 2 to 4);
(b) give views on the challenges facing social workers (paragraph 6) and the competency-based training suggested for them (paragraph 7);
(c) consider the roles of the respective training providers in the provision of pre-service vis-à-vis in-service training and development for social workers
(paragraphs 9 to 17); and
(d) for TI Members, share the changes/contributions made and/or to be made in the curricula of TIs in the light of all these changes.
Human Resource Management Branch
Social Welfare Department
April 2002