JAMAICAN social workers are to use today’s celebration of international social work day as a platform to help elevate the status of their profession and to air the variety of issues – including a lack of remuneration and resources – with which they are faced daily.

Derrick Palmer, regional director of the Disabled People’s Organisation of the Caribbean, said the title of social worker has for too long been bestowed on people who were neither sufficiently trained nor deserving.

“I would like it (social work) to be seen for what it is – a profession. You have the well-intentioned, non-professionals like ‘lady this’ and ‘lady that’, who are called social workers. Every politician’s wife has been regarded as a social worker, and some don’t know ‘a from bull foot’,” he said. “Everybody is seen as a social worker, particularly if you old and nuh have nothing fi do, so social work has been diluted.”

As such, he said it was past time that social workers be licensed.

“I think the profession should be licensed, and that would give it status and elevate it to the level of profession and (allow it) to be viewed in that light. I think really that is what it needs,” Palmer told the Observer yesterday.

He added that an increase in remuneration was also a necessity. “Compensation and all that type of thing is (also) needed,” Palmer said.

President of the Jamaica Association of Social Workers, Beverly Clarke had a similar view.

“I would endorse what Mr Palmer has to say. We need recognition like other (professional) groups. Recognition for the profession, that is really the number one priority that we would like to achieve now,” she said. “There is a perception that (as social worker) you hand out old clothes and do all sorts of menial tasks. But it (social work) is intervening and empowering persons, and making a difference in people’s lives.”

Clarke said the association was, however, moving to address the problem.

“Licensing seems a definite challenge, but we are focusing on the registration of our members as a professional group,” she said.

In addition, they intend to formulate a code of ethics for those in the profession.

“In fact, we have been discussing it, and having a series of consultations to have a code of ethics that we can buy into,” said Clarke, manager of the Learning for Earning Activity Programme (LEAP) at the Heart Trust/NTA.

Beyond that, the social worker said the association, which turns 40 next year, was moving to build its membership. Also, she said they intended to conduct research into the precise number of trained social workers there were on the island, and to glean from them the challenges they encounter in the conduct of their work.

“At a policy level, social issues need to be addressed more coherently and in a more systematic way. We have a patchy-patchy, piece meal approach,” she said. “It is time we have some coherent policy as to what is the status out there of all these social issues. And we need to harness the skills of our social workers to deal with the problem.”