An excerpt
from an intern:
Under the
leadership of my faculty, I and several other students embark on the Hong Kong
Association for the Green Society for its one-week internship. First of all, I
would like to thank the Association for its training and teaching. We sincerely
thank those colleagues who care about the development of our social workers in
the Mainland. Through this internship, we understand the current situation of
social work development in Hong Kong, feel the advantages of social services
for young people in Hong Kong, deepen our professional knowledge of social work
and see a huge gap between Hong Kong social workers and Mainland social
workers.
China has
more than 200 colleges and universities to open social work, the annual
training of social workers is in the tens of thousands but in accordance with
social needs, these people is not enough. Only 10% -30% of the students choose
the appropriate social work. Many of the social work professionals feel that
their employment prospects are not optimistic. The social work profession in
Hong Kong does not have the same fate as that of the Mainland. Since the
economic boom in the 1970s, social workers have rapidly realized their
localization and professionalism. So far, they have set up comparatively better
social worker registration system and social work professional norms. On the
other hand, mainland social workers still face the dual task of localization
and professionalism. Learning from Hong Kong is undoubtedly a shortcut to the
development of social workers in the Mainland.
Established
in November 1991, the Hong Kong Society for the Advancement of Youth is a
social institution providing crisis intervention services for young people at
risk and enjoys a high reputation in Hong Kong. Its service agencies have
overnight outreach teams, 24-hour telephone hotline, male / female crisis
intervention center, self-reliance hall and Po bar. The task of the outreach
team is to search the streets for teenagers who run away or are homeless on the
street every night from 10 pm to 6 am the next morning. The Crisis Intervention
Center operates on a small family basis. Professional social workers provide
counseling services for young people and their parents. They try to find out
the reasons why young people are running away from home and hope that the young
people can return to their families. Self-reliance Hall is a transitional hostel
for in-service or unemployed youths who provide six months of affordable
accommodation and basic vocational training to young people who have reached
the working age (15 years and over) but who have been wandering in the streets
due to their lack of independent living. To help them stand on their own. Po
bar is a young man's playground...
Stay tuned
for Part II….
