Social work capacity building in China: what to do and how?

Abstract

Social work professional training in China is newly developed in the past decade. How to design and deliver specific training to meet the specific needs of social service professionals has been a crucial issue to social work educators in China. In 2004, China Women's University, in collaboration with the Faculty of Social Work, University of Manitoba, started the project ‘Building human capacity: Social work with rural women in China’ funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). One of the main goals of project is to build social work professional capacity of the staff in the All-China Women's Federation (Women's Federation), so that they can provide service of better quality to women. In this paper, based on the data collected in the project sites, the authors will concentrate on what kind of training the Women's Federation staff received, and how they integrated that knowledge into their daily work. The authors will also suggest some implications for social work professional training for non-professionals in the future.

在过去十年中，中国的社会工作专业培训如雨后春笋般快速发展起来，如何根据某个特定行业特点和岗位需要，来设计培训内容，就成为社会工作教育者亟待解决的问题。2004年，在加拿大国际开发署的资助下，中华女子学院与加拿大马尼托巴大学社会工作学院合作，联合启动了为期六年的’能力建设：中国农村服务社会工作’项目，该项目的主要目标之一就是要为基层妇联干部进行社会工作能力建设，从而提高她们为农村妇女服务质量。本文根据在项目点收集的资料，试图回答这样几个问题：妇联干部需要什么样的培训，培训如何能够提升她们的能力，她们如何将学到的知识运用到日常工作中。作者还就如何给非专业人士开展社会工作专业培训提出了建议

Keywords:

• social work professional training
• women
• capacity building
• Women's Federation

Notes

1. Retrieved from Chinese Universities Online's reportage of the required scores of being admitted into social work degree programs.

2. In rural villages, usually the Women's Federation director wears two hats: one as the women's director and other as the director of family planning. Thus, rural women will go to the director for help for family planning issues.