To All Honourable Members of Parliament (MPs),
The Social Work Profession Bill 2026 has just been tabled in Parliament. It has been in development since 2010 and is critical to strengthen and bring professionalism to social work in the country by establishing clear standards, accountability and a code of ethics.
However, in its current draft, the Bill will not achieve its intended goal. It creates a double standard, threatens to penalise civil society and may compromise the quality of care delivered to vulnerable individuals.
As our elected representatives and lawmakers, kindly take note of these critical concerns, which we hope you will rectify.
Failing To Distinguish Professional Social Workers From General Volunteers
The Bill lacks any meaningful distinction between a professionally trained social worker (professionals) and someone who engages in social work (paid or unpaid, community workers, NGO staff, volunteers).
In Clause 31, ‘offences’ are outlined, and the Bill introduces criminal penalties. Clause 31(b) says that you need to be a ‘social work practitioner’ or ‘social work trainee’ to ‘provide social work services’.
Unregistered individuals providing ‘social work services’ can be fined up to RM20,000 and/or two years in prison, while employers can be fined up to RM50,000 (Clause 32).
Because the definition of ‘social work services’ in Clause 2 is very broad, the Bill will criminalise all the thousands of untrained but essential NGO volunteers, soup kitchen operators, faith-based counsellors, befrienders, and crisis aid workers.
If an uncertified volunteer steps in to provide crisis intervention or community support, they, and their NGO, could face criminal prosecution.
We need to refine the definitions in Clause 2 to explicitly separate specialised, professional ‘social work’ from general humanitarian aid and community volunteerism. The law should protect the professional title of ‘social worker’ from being fraudulently used, rather than criminalising the act of helping others.
Eliminate The Double Standard For Public Officers
Clause 19(8) is not a professional move. It is a loophole placed in the Bill to grant a blanket exemption to public officers, stating they do not need a practising certificate or qualifications to provide social work services in the course of their duties.
This creates a dangerous double standard. The Department of Social Welfare (JKM) and other government agencies handle the most critical child protection, domestic violence, and welfare cases in the country.
Exempting public officers from requiring a practising certificate effectively exempts them from mandatory competency standards, professional social worker degrees, continuing professional development (CPD), and the strict code of ethics enforced on the private and NGO sectors.
Vulnerable individuals deserve the same standard of professional care, whether they see a public or private Social Worker. JKM should be staffed by Professionally Trained Social Workers, not untrained individuals doing serious social work.
The blanket exemption should be replaced with a transparent, time-bound transition period (e.g. three to five years) to allow public officers to achieve accredited competency standards. New staff employed should all be professionally trained social workers.
Reclaim Professional Independence From Bureaucratic Control
Unlike comparable councils (e.g. the Malaysian Medical Council, Malaysian Bar, Nursing Board, etc), the Malaysian Social Work Profession Council (Clause 3) has no election by the profession itself.
For a body meant to regulate a profession’s ethics and standards, the Chairman (secretary-general of the ministry) and Deputy Chairman (director-general of social welfare) are both civil servants, and every other member is minister-appointed. This looks more like a government department than a self-regulating professional council.
MPs should push for an election mechanism where at least half of the Council (if not all) is elected by registered practitioners, rather than unilaterally appointed by the minister.
Additionally, the power to revoke appointments under Clause 10 must be bound by clear statutory grounds rather than political whim (appointment revoked with no reason provided).
Honourable Members of Parliament, we have waited more than 15 long years for this Bill to be tabled. We are currently lagging behind other Asean nations in terms of legislation in social work. We do not want the Bill deferred.
Our child protection services are weak and our welfare services lack professionalism. It is critical that we pass this Bill to enable our social services to be upgraded to a professional level, one that is being looked after and run by professionally trained social workers. We have enough, continuous examples of failures in our child protection services.
We implore you to look past partisan lines, listen to the concerns of actual practitioners on the ground, and fix these critical amendments before allowing the Social Work Profession Bill 2026 to pass into law. We elected you to protect the public interest.
This is probably one of the single most important bills we can pass for our children and for our nation. Please give us, the nation, a meaningful and effective Social Work Profession Bill.
Dr Amar-Singh HSS is a consultant paediatrician and child disability activist.
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
