Why China’s Social Workers Struggle to Make a Difference
Lacking public understanding and autonomy from the government, social workers struggle to make a difference
Five years after she became a professional social worker, Zheng Yilin decided to call it a day. She used to be passionate about her work with rehabilitating narcotics users in Guangzhou and Beijing, but thought her decision to quit was “for the best.”
Like many children from her native Guangzhou in China’s southeast, Zheng, who did not want to give her real name, grew up watching TV shows from Hong Kong, which depicted social workers in helpful roles such as training released prisoners to reintegrate into society, referring women living with HIV to clinics, and advocating for basic social protection and dignity for migrant workers. “It was from these TV shows that I got my first exposure to sociological discussions and social work. Those ideas were brand new,” she says. “I remembered seeing social workers doing great things for society and helping others, and I aspired to be like them someday.”
After getting her bachelor’s degree in social work in 2012, Zheng started working at a community center in Guangzhou for reintegrating former drug users into society. Her main tasks included pre-release intervention for drug users; making twice-monthly home visits, or sometimes daily phone calls, to check on their case subjects’ well-being and rehabilitation progress; organizing events to dispel public stigma around drug users; and referring her case subjects to counseling, career training, and other services. She also updated the police and community government office on her clients’ progress.
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