A Studying On The Legislation Of Social Worker’s Rights And Obligations In China

It cannot be denied that social work not only needs to be specialized, professionalized, localized, but also needs to be under the rule of law. The legislation of social work can help professional social worker to exert their influence, protect the legal rights and interests of the social worker, regulate their behavior, protect the interest of clients, and guarantee social work career development. International experience also suggests that legislation of social worker is significant to the development of social work. Law is a set of legal relations, expressed as the rights and obligations. Rights and obligations are the core contents of the law and no rights and obligations means no law. In order to manage and motive professional social workers, from the perspective of law, the first thing should be done is to do legislation research. This paper focuses on social worker’s legal rights and obligations, which is the key content in the law. Firstly, the paper provides a theoretical framework on social worker’s legal rights and obligations. Then under this framework, the paper points out that the current legislation of the social worker’s rights and obligations needs to figure out five pairs of relationships, namely the relationship of professional homogeneity and particularity, reality and development, lessons abroad and domestic practice, rights and obligations, law and moral. By discussing these, the paper gets its conclusions. On the research methods, the paper mainly adopts the comparative method. To be specific, it compares the related rights and obligations in laws regulating teacher, lawyer and so on. This paper also pays attentions to overseas legislations, which include social work legislations in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malta, Japan, South Africa, Canada, U.S.A., England, New Zealand, Switerland and so on. The paper analyzes some regulations about social work in China, ranging from the central government regulations to local regulations in some cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Zhuhai. Based on the above comparative analysis of the laws and regulations, combining with the analysis on the characteristics of social work in the society’s transitional period, the paper puts forward four rights, five obligations for social worker, hoping to contribute to the legislation of social work law in China. The four rights are professional qualification right, professional autonomy right, the right to request assistance and rights to be guaranteed. The five obligations are obligations about confidentiality, professional service records, accepting continuing education, reporting obligations and obeying the arrangement in disaster situations.