The Shanghai government is setting up standards for 100 social work firms it hopes to see created in the city by 2015, the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau announced on June 8th.
The government intends for these firms to employ 72,000 professional social workers, up from the current 10,000, the bureau said.
Marital and family services provided
Shanghai has been putting efforts into training social workers in the past few years, with more than 10,000 qualified social workers addressing health care, psychological consultancy, elderly care, juvenile delinquency, and many other issues..nbsp.
These professionals working in Shanghai have obtained certificates from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. Most of them are aged between 26 and 45, with good education and work experience, according to the bureau.
In the next five years, these workers will deliver services the local government hopes to outsource, including programs providing hospice care, drug addiction counseling, and adoption and marriage-related services, according to the bureau.
The city is planning to train another 80,200 professional social workers within 10 years, the bureau added.
Salary tripled in last 8 years
Wu Li, an officer for the Shanghai Lequn Social Work Service Organization, the first of its kind to be set up in the Chinese mainland in 2003, constantly worried about not getting enough programs to support the organization's operation. She welcomed favorable policies from the local government.
"The development of social work organizations in the mainland largely depends on the attitude of the local government, as the fund-raising environment in the country is still immature," she told the Global Times on Thursday.
Han Lirong, an officer for the Social Worker Society in Pudong New Area, said that lack of sufficient funding also leads to difficulty in recruiting qualified social workers.
"The brain drain in the field is severe and it is very hard to recruit at the managerial level, as the salary is not competitive," she told the Global Times on Thursday.
According to Han, the average salary for social workers is currently 2,500 yuan ($386) per month, three times higher than in 2003.
