Media Centre
Achieving Registration for Australian Social Workers
Dear Members,
Achieving Registration for Australian Social Workers – it's time and we need your help to make it happen!
Attaining registration of the Social Work profession is a key goal of the AASW and is something that you as our members have asked us to pursue so please join with us as we take the next steps to achieving this important goal.
The AASW's National Registration Committee has been working to position the AASW so that we can commence a coordinated campaign to ensure that Social Workers in Australia are appropriately regulated through the National Regulation and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS). We are now in a position to begin to actively call for inclusion in the NRAS scheme.
Registration FAQ's
To assist Members to understand what Registration entails and some of the challenges in obtaining it we have produced a set of FAQ's that provide more detailed information.
Roy Morgan Market Survey
Earlier this year the AASW engaged Roy Morgan to undertake a survey of Australians to better understand what their expectations were when they saw a professional for counseling. Including the level of qualifications they should have, who they thought they could complain to about them and if they thought they could be "struck" off if they did something wrong. The results of this survey have been included within the submission (see below) to Health Ministers but a full summary has been produced which can be found here. The results make for interesting reading and demonstrate that Australians think they have far greater protection against inappropriate and poor practice than they actually have.
Australian Health Ministers Submission and Lobbying
A submission to Australian Health Ministers has recently been made to each of the Health and Mental Health Ministers, their shadow counterparts and key Independents in every jurisdiction along with a request to meet with the AASW. Please read through the submission and share this with your social work colleagues and other stakeholders who you think should be aware of our call to be registered.
We need your help to ensure that our elected officials understand our commitment to attaining registration and why it is necessary in the Australian context, by you directly lobbying the relevant politicians in your jurisdictions including your local Members , the current Ministers for Health and Mental Health as well as their opposition counterparts , key independents and Members of the Greens at the Federal and State/Territory level of government.
If you are not sure who your local Federal Member is you can go to http://apps.aec.gov.au/esearch/ to find their details. You will also find links on the AEC site to your State or Territory electoral commission which has a similar search function to find details of your local member at this level of government. If you haven't been involved in lobbying your Member of Parliament before or are not sure how to go about it we have produced a Registration Lobbying Kit for you to use and on the AASW website you will find a podcast that has been produced for us by an experienced Government Relations Consultant on how to effectively lobby Parliamentarians. This podcast features the current QLD Speaker discussing how to maximise your success when lobbying. It takes about 10 minutes to watch and has some helpful hints and tips.
The AASW has produced a draft template letter that you might like to use in lobbying Parliamentarians. Please personalise the letter and include your own examples from your professional experiences on why registration is necessary. If you are not sure on how to contact Parliamentarians you can find contact details for them via the following links:
For Federal politicians
http://www.aph.gov.au/whoswho/index.htm
For State and Territory politicians
www.parliament.tas.gov.au
www.parliament.nsw.gov.au
www.parliament.vic.gov.au
www.parliament.qld.gov.au
www.parliament.wa.gov.au
www.parliament.sa.gov.au
www.legassembly.act.gov.au
www.nt.gov.au/lant/
We would actively encourage you to talk with your Branches to see what they might be planning on a local level and to Social Workers in your networks to consider banding together for a lobbying visit to your State and Territory Parliament to meet with as many Parliamentarians as possible or to invite local Parliamentarians to meet with you.
We are also really keen to try and get employers, unions, special interest groups and other stakeholders in each jurisdiction to support and promote our call for inclusion in the NRAS Scheme. Ask them to consider formally supporting the push by writing to the Federal Health Minister and the Health Minister in your jurisdiction.
We know that many non-AASW members also support the registration of Social Work so please tell your non-member colleagues and ask them to join the effort.
Please let people in your networks know about our push for registration and the materials we have to support this and ask them to help in any way they can.
Without a concerted and combined effort we won't be able to build the political will to make this happen. We did it with Better Access so let's try and do it for Registration.
If you would like more information, have any questions or comments about the Campaign for registration please email the National Registration Committee at registration@aasw.asn.au.
We look forward to your support and involvement in the coming days and weeks with this strategy and we will keep you up to date as we begin to meet with Parliamentarians across the country to seek their support for the inclusion of Social Workers in NRAS.
Peter Badenhorst
Chief Operating Officer