Social workers can have impact on public policy, says Maliki

It can be frustrating for social workers to hit a roadblock when appealing to government agencies to extend help to their clients or for certain policy exceptions.

But instead of viewing these agencies as adversaries, it is important for social workers to understand the intent of the policies and to advocate for clients in a way that is reasonable for society, said Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Maliki Osman yesterday.

He spoke about how social workers can have an impact on policy at a seminar organised by family violence specialist centre Pave, held to mark Social Work Day.

Social workers should understand policies and explain them to clients, said Dr Maliki, who is a trained social worker and who taught social work at the National University of Singapore before entering politics.

When a policy waiver or change is needed, they should work on building a case for it, he added.

"The system is put in place based on certain values of society: One, we want the family to be responsible for looking after fellow family members; and two, prudence in spending government resources, to be fair to everybody in the society," he said.

For instance, anyone who has sold a Housing Board flat cannot rent a unit from the HDB until 30 months later.

Dr Maliki cited a case where a couple tried to abuse the system by asking social workers to get a rental flat for their elderly parents so that they could rent out a room in their home to get an income.

This debarment period is in place to "put friction" on the allocation of heavily subsidised rental flats, to give priority to those who have not had a rental flat before.

But social workers can affect policy, said veteran social worker and Pave founder Sudha Nair.

When social workers advocate for clients respectfully, understand the authorities' point of view and come to a compromise, the authorities will listen and make changes - as she has seen in her 30 years of experience in the field of social work, she said.

Dr Nair gave an example of how the Government changed the legislation within five months after hearing the story of a woman who was badly abused by her lover but could not get protection as she was not married to the abuser.

Previously, unmarried victims could not apply for personal protection orders under the Women's Charter, and it took some time to get protection through magistrate's complaints or under the Protection from Harassment Act (Poha).

Amendments to Poha were passed in 2019 to include protection for unmarried partners.

Pave had also brought up another woman's struggle of having to go through a long process to report her husband's abuse to the police and testify in court.

The late judge Richard Magnus - who died on Monday - made it easier for victims by letting them attend court through video call, instead of having to make a trip to court.

Dr Maliki also said that as a social worker turned politician, he advocated improving the employment rates of former convicts - some can now have their criminal records erased if they do not reoffend for five consecutive years.

Commending social workers for their efforts, Dr Maliki urged them to take care of themselves so that they can take care of others, assuring them that the authorities would continue looking at improving their welfare.