In recent years, although the development of training in social work profession has grown rapidly, its level of development varies in different provinces in Mainland China. The start in the Guangdong province was a bit late, therefore they required more support.

In 2002, HKCS began our training support in to SUN Yat-sen University through workshops and seminars. Last year, we were invited to teach on Youth Social Work for their third-year social work undergraduates in one of their semester courses.

This year we also attempted to assist the growth in the Social Work profession of the Guangdong Commercial College that had launched their Social Work Study Program under the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. In April, Mr. Barry Wong, our Coordinator of Mainland China Social Service Project, gave their students a 3-day intensive workshop on fieldwork placement. We hoped to see their students learn the ways to apply professional knowledge and principles in field work with proper skills and ethics. We had even arranged for those students to come to Hong Kong and visited two of our centres: On Wah Day Activity Centre, a rehabilitation centre for moderately to severely handicapped adults and Shun Lee Hostel for the Elderly. They were given the opportunities to learn directly from those whom we served, the frontline social workers and other professionals present during that visit.

During the same Hong Kong visit, we coordinated a panel discussion for them with the staff and students from the Department of Social Work of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Those experiences contributed greatly in building a foundation for their Social Work development.