Social Work

During my ,previous job one of my colleague told me I will never tell any of my relatives to study Social Work Degree because of not have any expertise in any sector and no more scope to work in society. I did not react but this statement made me think about the social work and the profession associated with it.

Recently, visited one reputed organization working for children, there were the social work trainee waiting for children to come their mere job is to take care of children during day time like “Nanny”. I have heard that some of the students have to clean the filthy toilets of some organizations too. When I was student of social work during my bachelor level I have been through the same situation not to the extent of Nanny but more or less working like volunteer in an organization.

The social workers can work beyond nanny or the mere cleaner. The social workers have variety of things to do; to work on counseling for the victims, meeting with parents/family, administration and to find out the needs of victims, work for fund raising and more importantly be the bridge between the family, client and organization in need.

My response to my dear colleague, in Nepal there is still mismatch between profession that we are into and degree that we have. People hardly get job in the subject they have mastered in. " My own brother used to be the student of Humanities, now he is working in the field of hospitality management and even dabbles in his office's account section too. I have seen many engineers working in the different types of NGOs in a position that have nothing to do with their field of study." (The degree divide, 2010)

In Nepal there still lacks the particular specialization in social work in academy or degree and less concept of corporate, industrial and clinical Social work where social worker can work. Moreover there is still confusion among people regarding the difference between social work and social service.