Draft Bill on Social Work discussed in detail at webinar

The Draft National Council for Social Work (Education and Practice) Bill, 2020, brings progressive changes in social work education and practice in India, Vimla Nadkarni, a retired professor of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, has said in a webinar, organised by Department of Social Work, Andhra University, on Thursday.

Prof. Vimla Nadkarni and a group of social work educators and practitioners prepared a draft bill, which discusses the standards in the social work course, syllabus, code of conduct and ethics related to the social work profession in India.

Prof. Ghandi Doss, a retired professor of social work from Bangalore University, highlighted the need for more professional associations at the local, regional, State-level and national-level to further strengthen the social work profession in India, participating the webinar, organised by K. Visweswara Rao, a professor in the Social Work Department of AU.

Another panel speaker Nafisa Goga D’Souza, Executive Director of Laya Resource Centre, spoke on the need for integrating theory and practice by including field work.

Sudhakar Dharmavaram, Senior Programme Leader, GMR Varalakshmi Foundation, suggested the ways and means to carry forward the social work education and practice Bill, 2020.

Prof. Visweswara Rao, who chaired the session, explained the objectives of the consultative webinar. Fruitful discussions were done on the draft Bill and the report would be submitted to the draft committee from Andhra University very soon. He said that nearly 300 social work educators and practitioners, including some senior professors of social work in the country actively participated in the webinar and expressed their opinions on the Bill.

Participants from 22 States and Union Territories of India actively deliberated on various issues related to professional social work in the webinar.

Post-doctoral fellows and research scholars of the Department of Social Work, Andhra University, participated.

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