Social work a conduit to health in Vietnam

14/04/2008
For academics at Memorial University of Newfoundland and in Vietnam health problems are part of larger social issues and require the expertise of social workers

Social workers in Vietnam are gaining ground in the fight to improve health and reduce poverty, especially among women and children in the country’s rural areas, thanks to a capacity-building project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency through the University Partnership in Cooperation and Development program. Over the past five years, Vietnamese and Canadian academics successfully reached out to more than 1,200 social workers in rural areas alone.

 

During this time, the College of Labour and Social Affairs in Hanoi became the University of Labour and Social Affairs (ULSA). It has been working with Memorial University of Newfoundland’s school of nursing and social work to improve the education of social workers and to gain recognition among policy makers as a crucial part of Vietnam’s development.

 

“The project has been very effective in training community workers, who will in turn provide better services to their communities” says Nguyen Thai Lan, a ULSA faculty member who helped the project develop a curriculum relevant to the education needs of Vietnamese students and to the people they go o­n to serve.

 

The challenges are significant: as a result of a post-war baby boom, 50 percent of Vietnam’s population is under the age of 25; statistic indicate that the poverty rate has declined from 51 percent in 1992 to 30 percent in 1997, but despite substaintial economic development, the gap between rural and urban quality of life is widening. In the past, “social work was not seen as a profession” says Lan Gien, professor atMemorial‘s school of nursing and Canadian co-director of the project. In small rural communities,social issues were either dealt with by government or millitaty officials or not dealt with at all. The disadvantaged in these communities- wommen, the elderly, the very young, the disabled-have continued tofeel the brunt of o­ngoing poverty and its often tragic consequences. Protitution, family violence and break-up, homelessness, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS-“these things were not looked at before” says Dr. Gien.

 

Today social workers who receive training at ULSA are tackling these problems through educationon social and health issues within the communities themselves.

 

Of particular concern, for instance, are the problems of opium and the trafficking of women along the northern border with China. ULSA-trained community workers have come together to forman advisory committee with women’s and youth groups, a retirees’ association and a farmers’ syndicate to increase awareness of the problems through workshops, brochures and counselling.

 

Also of great concern is the o­ngoing stigma attached to people with HIV/AIDS. Here, says ULSA’s Dr. Thai Lan, the school has also had its successes. “A trainee in a workshop for community workers in Hanam province said that before the workshop, she was very afraid of the HIV/AIDS patients; she thought they were dirty. But now she changed her mind and felt that they needed to be supported and respected”

 

So far, 80 students have completed ULSA’s 10-course social –work program, developed in conjunction with Memorial and taught in the Vietnamese language. Twelve ULSA students have completed master of social work degrees at University of Regina or the University of the Philippines and now form the core academic staff for ULSA’s bachelor of social work program, teaching, conducting research and providing continuing education. Many of these academics visited Memorial University in Newfoundland to share their knowledge and experience of social work in Vietnam. The school’s staff also attended workshops to improve teaching skills, focusing o­n subjects such as field-work education and supervision, current trends in social work and project evaluation.

 

ULSA has expanded its library and also opened the Social Work Practice Centre o­n campus. This unique community resource provides counseling to students and staff, orphaned children and local teenagers o­n subjects ranging from living skills to sexual health.

 

The university’s reach has extended far into rural communities. Workshops designed for those unable to attend the program at the school in Hanoi have attracted 1,200 rural social-work providers-five times as many as originally intended.

 

The Vietnamese government has taken notice of ULSA’s impressive progress and has invited faculty to sit o­n a national committee to develop a training code and improve social-work education throughout the country. Ten other universities have sought advice o­n how to design their own similar programs, and the school is increasing its international collaborations with Canada, the Philippines, Germany, Singapore and Australia.

Most satisfying, says Dr. Thai Lan, is knowing that the Vietnamese government now acknowledges that the need is great for more well-trained social workers, and that ULSA can work together over the long term with such bodies as the Ministry of Health and the National Committee o­n HIV/AIDS to improve the health of all Vietnamese, the disadvantaged in particular. “We’re pushed up the recognition of social work as a profession,” says Dr. Thai Lan.

Uniword, March 2008

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