Legislation - Registration - Professional Development

C.K. Law

　

Preface

　

This paper was initially written for the newsletter of the Hong Kong Social Workers Association. It attempts to spelt out the possible relationship between professional development and legislation in the future, and how the various bodies, including the Social Workers Registration Board, the Hong Kong Social Workers Association, and the proposed Hong Kong Academy of Social Work.

　

Some Background Historical Notes

Back in 1981, the HKSWA had already started working on the promotion of the registration of social workers. In 1984, it joined with the HK Social Workers General Union (HKSWGU), and the HK Council of Social Service (HKCSS) to form a joint committee for this venture. The HK Social Welfare Personnel Registration Council was provisionally formed in 1990 and formally established in 1991 to operate the voluntary registration system. It was only until 1997 that the legislation for registration of social workers was finally passed.

Back in 1991, the HKSWS had first drafted a paper on the future development of the social workers profession, spelling out the merger of the two streams (diploma and degree holders) into one, and the different levels of individual professional development, in particular, the level of independent practice and specialization. Again, in 1996 the HKSWA, HKCSS and HKSWGU formed a working group on the professional structure of social workers. In 1998, the three organizations endorsed the final paper in principle and entrusted the HKSWA to carry the proposal further. In the proposal, the professional structure was described as having at least 4 levels: two entry levels (diploma and degree), an independent practice level, and a specialist level. In between the independent practice level and specialist level, there is a particular "mid-level", i.e. "qualified supervisor". Another key element of the proposal is a system for developing and monitoring supervised practice which enable a beginning professional social worker to advance to the level of independent practice.

In 1997, the HKSWA conducted a mini-study on the supervision of social workers. Subsequently, the HKSWA began to work on the idea of developing a certification course for supervisors. From this work, the HKSWA first formulated the idea of establishing an Academy of Social Work. In 2000, the HKSWA has already registered a trade name using Academy of Social Work.

The Social Workers Registration Board (SWRB) was legally established in early 1998. The Code of Practice was published in late 1998. Subsequently, a committee of the SWRB started working on a set of guidelines for the code of practice. One important item in these guidelines that paved the way for the continuous professional development is the "recommendation" to social workers to have at least 24 hours of continuous professional development each year. The discussion on whether this "recommendation" should become a requirement for annual renewal of registration began. The SWRB is currently reviewing the Ordinance and would be ready to consult social workers at the end of this year or early next year. The HKSWA has also taken up this idea of developing a system of promoting and monitoring continuous professional development and tied this up with the development of the Academy. It is from here that the following ideas evolved.

　

The building blocks for the future professional development

　

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The future development of the profession

　

While it took almost 16 years for the registration to be finally set up, we would expect that it would take a relatively shorter time for the other building blocks to be established.

　

Continuous education is considered to be necessary for all professions and basically for all adults. There are three types of continuous professional education, namely, updating, upgrading and specialization. While the latter two can be considered to be "desirable" or sometimes "optional", we would expect that "updating" as a must for any profession. The controversial part of developing a system of promoting and monitoring continuous professional development is "what" constitutes continuous education, e.g. whether participating in a conference or even reading a book qualified to be counted as part of continuous education. With the experience of other systems in other countries and in other professions, we expect that this difficulty can be overcome.

　

Having continuous professional development as a requirement in the profession also, at least partially, solves the old issue of whether a person who has graduated years ago before joining the profession or has left the profession for a long period of time is still qualified to be a social worker. If continuous professional development is required of anyone who is continuously practicing, or in legal terms, registered, we would expect the same thing from those who have not joined or left the profession for a number of years to do the same thing before they can practice again.

　

Licensing is different from registration in one significant way. Licensing is a proof of reaching a certain professional standard. Registration is simply registering those who are or can practice. At present, we allow people without recognized training to register as long as the person can propose to study social work within a reasonable period of time. License is also a proof of the capability of independent practice. At present, most beginning social workers have to work under close supervision. A similar system is the "approved social worker" as in the case of probation officer who can then sign and submit a court report by oneself without requiring the approval of the supervisor. Today, private practice in social work in Hong Kong is still rare. However, we would expect private practice will become more and more common. Furthermore, we would also expect more and more social workers practicing in for-profit organizations, e.g. private elderly homes. In this context, the development of licensing would become more and more necessary.

　

We have been discussing specialization of social work practice for over two decades since the topic of senior practitioners was raised in the early 1980s. We should note that the doctors had only established their specialist register in Hong Kong in 1997. If we consider licensing of social workers as the next step, we can take the development of a specialist register as the subsequent step.

　

The Role of the Social Workers Registration Board (SWRB)

　

At present, the Social Workers Registration Board is only empowered by the law to do two things: registration of social workers and self-discipline. One basic handicap of all statutory bodies is the limitation by law in what it can do. In registered companies, the objects spelt out in its memorandum is usually so broad that it can practically do anything related to its mission directly or indirectly. On the other hand, every addition of function will require changing the law and facing the question of whether it is justified to give power by law to a statutory body to perform a particular function.

　

The requirement of continuous professional development, the issue of licenses and maintenance of a specialist register are naturally the function of a registration body, i.e. the SWRB. However, before the law has given power to the SWRB to do so, it would be practically difficult for the SWRB to build the detailed groundwork of these functions. Thus, the most plausible approach is to first build the structure outside the SWRB, i.e. the Academy of Social Work. After it has become mature, then a "bridge" is built by amending the ordinance of SWRB. This is very similar to the approach adopted by the medical field. The development of the system of training and accreditation of specialist is housed within the Academy of Medicine. Within the Medical Registration Ordinance, a reference is made to the "recommendation of the Academy of Medicine", i.e. the Education Committee of the Medical Council will put the names of those recommended by the Academy of Medicine under the Specialist Register. After all, in terms of making law, it would only be prudent to amend the law after the proposed professional function has been carried out for some time and proven workable.

　

HKSWA and the Academy: now and the future

　

While anyone or any group of interested social workers can take the initiative to organize the Academy of Social Work, the primary function of the HKSWA is to promote professional development. We can even say that it is mandatory for the HKSWA to proceed with promoting and establishing the Academy of Social Work, as twenty years ago that the HKSWA should be the champion to promote the establishment of the registration system. As we have already noted in the field of medicine that after the establishment of the Academy of Medicine, the professional function of the HK Medical Association began to shrink. If the HKSWA is successful in setting up the Academy, it will inevitably transfer some of its professional functions to the Academy and ultimately lead to its own shrinkage. At that time in the future, we would have to re-examine the role of HKSWA again. However, I am confident that the HKSWA would still exist to champion the advocacy of professional values and concern in our society.

　

Short notes

　

Future plan

　

Initial thoughts on the structure of the Academy

　

SWRB proposed CPE requirement