The year 2024 marks the 75th Anniversary of the founding of the Hong Kong Social Workers Association (the Association). I take pride as the President in reporting the significant progress that the Association has been making in advancing its mission of unifying social workers and advancing the profession.

Membership

Investing in membership growth is very important to the Association as it directly impacts its success and sustainability. We in the Association have been striving to build a more thriving membership base. Our approach is targeted at both retaining current members and recruiting new members. We have been actively reaching out to more social welfare agencies of different sizes. We have also been positively engaging more agencies in our activities and sought their assistance in promoting the Association to their staff.

On 22 August 2024, the Association signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Future Cooperation with the Connecting Hearts and the Connecting Hearts Academy at the opening ceremony of the Academy. The Connecting Hearts is a non-governmental organization (NGO) engaged in uniting the social welfare sector. The Academy, as stated by the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region at its opening ceremony, is designed to be a new landmark; a new motivating force; and a new platform for the social welfare sector. The signing of this MOU connects the Association with the wider social welfare sector through the Connecting Hearts and Connecting Hearts Academy network.

In commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the founding of the Association, a special membership promotion package has been launched in 2024 to enable Members to pay their membership fees at 75% of the original fees (with a 25% discount). Furthermore, 3-year and 5-year duration memberships have been added on top of the original 1-year and life membership. This goodwill gesture helps to bring the Association back to the radars of our potential Members.

The Heartwarming Awards

As the Association is entering its 75th year, we in the Council have decided to launch “The Most Heartwarming Social Workers and Social Work Students” Competition. The objective is to give recognition to those social workers and/or social worker students who have served the community with their “hearts”. We have intended to give out awards to the 10 most outstanding applicants who may either be social workers or students. To our pleasant surprise, we have received a total of 99 applications (90 from social workers and 9 from students).

The screening committee (comprising 17 members of diverse backgrounds) and the judging panel (chaired by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare) have diligently reviewed these 99 applications. The judging panel has decided that the 10 applicants who gained the highest scores would receive the 10 Most Heartwarming Social Workers Awards and additionally, the Association would give out 15 merits awards to 10 social workers and 5 social work students. Ming Pao has advertised the 10 Most Heartwarming Social Worker Awardees publicly and asked the general public to vote for the best (out of the 10). In this way, we share with the community the most heartwarming experiences of our social workers.

The award ceremony will take place at the 2025 Annual Dinner to be held on 21 February 2025. The Annual Dinner cum Heartwarming Award Ceremony event has received overwhelming response from the welfare sector. Over 600 participants from the Government, donors, welfare agencies, and other supporting organisations will attend the event to share and learn from the heartwarming experiences of the awardees.

The Academy of Social Work

The Academy has continued, with vigor, its important mission of producing continuing professional development for the social welfare sector. The Specific Professional Competency Framework (PCF) for Rehabilitation Social Workers was developed in June 2024, in addition to the three Specific PCFs (on Mental Health, Family and Children, School) built up in 2021-2023. The Review of Specific PCF for School Social Workers was completed in November 2023, three years after its establishment to keep it up-to-date. After its Review in 2023, the General PCF was converted by local research into a Professional Competency Inventory for measuring local social workers’ competency. Besides accrediting CPD courses and credentialing social workers, the Academy provided 107 training sessions between October 2023 and September 2024 to advance the competencies of social workers in Hong Kong.

The Social Work Day

To support the World Social Work Day 2024, several events were organized under the theme “Inherit the past to inspire the future for a new start”. These included: the Social Worker Forum – Narration of Case Stories, held on 19 March 2024, where over 480 participants shared their experiences on the application of social work values and real-life challenges; a Thanksgiving Function, arranged in March 2024, where 24 social welfare agencies showed appreciation to social workers by gathering gratitude messages from service users; “Celebrating Change on Social Work Day” – an Embracing Diversity Evening Reception”, held on 21 March 2024, which also marked the 2^nd anniversary of the Chapter on Ethnically Diverse Social Work; and the Social Worker Run, held on 1 May 2024, which was officiated by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare and drew the attendance of over 1300 social workers, social work students, NGO staff, volunteers and service users.

Learning Experience

The Asia Pacific Social Work Student Conference – Battle of Wits: Social Work Wisdom vs. InnoTech Intelligence was held from 5 to 8 June 2024 in Macau. Over 80 participants from the Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines took part in the conference.

A 7-day National Studies Course was organized from 31 August to 6 September 2024 at Hunan. A total of 47 social work professionals from various agencies participated in it. All participants have found the experience rewarding.

Continuing our Journey

Reflecting on the journey we have taken in 2024, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to the Government, funders, donors and our many supporting organisations for their generous support and encouragement. I would also like to sincerely thank the Council Members, Members, volunteers and the staff team for their unrelenting passion and dedication. As we embark on the coming year, I am confident that the Association will continue to foster its growth for the purpose of better serving our profession.