“Concern”, even “dismay”: The report, which summarizes the results of the General Assembly of Social Work and consultations with 600 professionals, is rather gloomy and calls for reforms.
Social work appears to have lost its committed character and brilliance as an agent of social change and supporter of communities, says the 73-page report presented this week.
Quebec has approximately 16,000 social workers who support their patients and their families in schools, hospitals, CLSCs, rehabilitation centers, homeless shelters, prisons or within community organizations.
Social work is a craftsman and builder of solidarity, explains Nadine Vollant, social worker and general director of the Regroupement Mamit-Innuat, at the microphone of the program Le 15-18.
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Nadine Vollant, social worker and general director of the Mamit-Innuat Regroupement
Photo: Radio-Canada / Emelie Rivard-Boudreau
As Commissioner of the Estates General for Social Work, which took place last April, she was a co-signatory of the report presented this week. (New window) This report examines the accounting logic and management constraints that appear to be becoming increasingly important as health and social services networks are reformed.
As a result, accountability takes up too much of the working time of social work actors and dehumanizes the relationship with users, says the report, based in particular on a survey of 331 practitioners.
Some findings from the Estates General for Social Work :
- Social work practices are not well understood and valued by the population;
- Access to services is difficult: a lack of staff leads to longer waiting times.
- Frequent staff changes affect the quality of supervision;
- Given the standardization of practices, some migrate to the private sector;
- The health and social system appears “over-centralized”;
- The initial training requires an update.
Some of the report's recommendations :
- Spend more time on intervention and less on administration;
- Promote proximity and take territorial dynamics into account;
- Restore the relationship of trust with the population that has been broken.
- Develop group interventions to complement individual interventions;
- Establish professional associations.
According to Nadine Vollant, we currently have a system that is far too hospital-centered. In her opinion, we need to propose more global, collective approaches that respond to the needs of the population, returning to the core of the profession and the values of the profession.
The great importance given to the medical field in the network of health and social services diminishes the importance and role of social work. […] The majority of people believe that there is a mismatch between government funding of the medical and curative sectors compared to the funding of social services and prevention.
Two months before the professional summit, which will take place in Montreal and online on April 19 and 20, Ms. Vollant calls on her colleagues to mobilize to restore a collective feeling and closeness to interventions and the professional autonomy of practitioners and practitioners to promote.