Social Workers’ Day-Minister urges social workers, agencies to work in harmony |04 October 2005

The call comes from the Minister for Health and Social Services, Vincent Meriton, in his message on the occasion of Social Workers’ Day, being celebrated Tuesday October 4.

In his message Minister Meriton has also announced Government’s support towards the formation of a Council for Social Workers which will be the professional body for social services accreditation and accountability.

Minister Meriton’s message reads:
“On the occasion of Social Workers Day today, it is opportune to reflect on the important contributions of social workers in our society and to express our appreciation to those who provide social services in Seychelles.  Social work is a profession committed to the pursuit of social justice, to the enhancement of the quality of life and the development of the full potential of the individual, group and community.

“Social workers work with people to assist them in bringing about change and control in their lives.   In their roles as agents of change, social workers work in an increasingly complex environment of uncertainty to empower those with whom the profession interacts.  They work in different settings providing social services such as Probation, NCC, Health, Hospital, Education and the Police.

“As such the environment in which social workers practice requires them to have particular professional characteristics and generic professional competencies such as communication, problem solving, moral referencing, cognitive reflection and task management.

“Presently, we have about 200 persons engaged in social related work nationally.

There is a social and community expectation that social workers should have certain competencies – knowledge – skills – attitude to efficiently execute their profession to their client’s satisfaction. Therefore, Government has recently stepped up the training and development of social workers to professionalise and provide quality social services.

Introduction of special schemes have resulted in a significant increase of qualified and competent social workers in employment, trained locally and abroad.

Social workers are therefore urged to display social work professional ethics, acquired through their training, to gain public confidence in the new social work practice that we want to establish.

“Social work is multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary hence requires networking and good public relations and communication skills in order to work in concert with the different agencies involved in addressing issues faced by the client in a speedy manner. The message today as we commemorate Social Workers Day is to call on all social workers and agencies engaged in social services to work harmoniously together to provide the desired efficient and effective service to earn the professional status and recognition which the service so deserves.”