What is Social Work in Mongolia?

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, “there are two main types of social workers: direct-service social workers, who help people solve and cope with problems in their everyday lives, and clinical social workers, who diagnose and treat mental, behavioral, and emotional issues.”


This article will be focusing on the first type of social worker, those who help people in their everyday lives. In Mongolia, however, social work is seen as something slightly different. The idea of social work in Mongolia is relatively new; since the move to a free market economy in the 1990’s many things have had to change in Mongolia, including many job roles and peoples positions within society. In 1924 Mongolia was part of a communist regime, and had substantial financial, economic and even social help from the Soviet Union. After the break away from this, many families descended into poverty, many became homeless, jobless and many children were abandoned. Many issues that the country had never faced before began to surface and the government and society itself was not prepared to handle these problems.

The idea of social work is a western concept that due to this rapid change in society was drastically needed in Mongolia. So how far has social work developed in Mongolia in the 20 years since it was first really needed in Mongolia’s modern society? What are the cultural dimensions of social work and its relationship to the alternative western programmes? These are questions that I cannot truly answer, but that must be thought about.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting a very humble Mongolian woman who although had no formal training, was acting as a social worker for the children in her community. She had been taken under the wing of a European social worker and had shadowed her while performing her duties, speaking and listening to children and their families. Although never having trained as a social worker in the Mongolian education system, she understood that there are many differences between the role of a social worker in the West and what is expected of a social worker in Mongolia.

There have been many programmes to help develop Mongolian social work, such as the 2008 project run by the University of Utah, US, and the Department of Social Work at Mongolia State University. The aim of the project was so that the future of Mongolian social workers would be to create “a model of family support so that children can remain in their homes. Part of this model will be to aid the government in addressing the extreme poverty facing these families.” In 2001 the Ministry of Education in collaboration with Save the Children UK, MCRC and Social Work Department at the State University of Teachers also participate in social worker training.

However, there is little law surrounding social workers and their profession, and very few graduates from social work schools actually go on to work as social workers. It is also worth noting that although the social work profession does offer some support to at risk and vulnerable children, according to Save the Children, these are mostly responsive efforts, with very little, in fact, almost no effort placed on preventative measures.

The employers of social workers are also unclear as to the role of a social worker, and many, especially in schools, end us being teachers or glorified event’s organisers. I have witnessed occasions where school directors will ask social workers to arrange competitions, parties, and to do administration. With 60% of children believing that the job of a social worker is to organise extra-curricular events, it is no wonder the true role of a social worker is rather blurry. The unclear job description of social workers may be hindering their true role to help vulnerable people cope with their everyday lives. But it is still unclear to me what social workers themselves consider their role to be. Two social workers who trained at the Department of Social Work in the State University studied child care and psychology, but were unable to distinguish when a child was troubled through classic behaviour such as bulling or stealing. In the weeks to come, I will be working more closely with these social workers to see if I can discover what social work is in Mongolia and what social workers see their role as being in modern day Mongolia.

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