Thank you for your kind reply, it has made your points clearer to me where I did not understand where you were coming from before.

Perhaps, to discuss your point on the conflicts that arise from being employed or funded by the state, and the resulting maintenance of a social control paradigm instead of a critically questioning paradigm for social work, I agree that conversations about such have to be ongoing amongst social workers. But it is not limited to SWs alone, this is very similar to creating a thinking culture amongst all Singaporeans.

And we know how difficult that is, but we have to keep trying. Keeping our minds alive is more than just a professional duty.

Thanks for the feedback.

I agree with you that the UN conventions have to be critically looked at because human rights also needs to be mediated through a country’s cultural framework and there is no one size fits all approach. However, I believe that the various conventions provide a basis in which we can practise social work. The challenge would be how to modify or tweak the framework that has been provided so that it is relevant for our local context. As social workers and social work students, I see the need to begin these conversations.

I wrote the article with Singapore in mind so the points I made were not in reference to social work in other countries. Indeed, there is much we can learn from other countries in the way social work is practised, and certainly much we can offer as well. As far as I understand, the Australian and Canadian schools of social work emphasise a rights based approach to practice, as do the Filipinos. I feel there is a need to re-look how social work has been constructed and how it is taught so there is more diversity in the way we practise.

Jolovan

Social workers are primarily bound to fulfil Codes of Ethics in their practice. UN standards and State standards are simply nice to look at and consider critically before accepting/rejecting for social work practice. Would you agree on this?

Also, why is it you say that “the education that social workers receive centres mostly on developing micro level direct service skills and counselling methods, with scant attention paid to advocacy strategies, community organising, and critically exploring what advocacy and social action means from a rights based perspective”? Are you perhaps overgeneralising the nature of social work education from the experience of a single educational institution?

It is sad that even in this uncontroversial field of social service, where it might be assumed that everyone even remotely involved with it shares the same aims of ‘doing good’ to ‘as many as possible, especially of the less fortunate and the disadvantaged’, the PAP has totally depoliticised and neutered the noble work of social workers, demeaning them into just unthinking practitioners, just deliverers of counsel, some care and concern work, etc.

*Comments edited by moderator for relevance.