Seoul City Enhances Expertise of Social Welfare Officials with 'Welfare Education Completion System'

Expanded to All Public Officials Handling Welfare Tasks Beyond the Existing Social Welfare Series
Renaming of Training from 'Mandatory Social Welfare Training' to 'Social Welfare Leader Training'

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] On the 10th, Seoul City announced that it will expand the application of the civil servant welfare education completion system, introduced to enhance the professionalism and pride of civil servants performing social welfare duties, to all civil servants engaged in social welfare work starting this year.

Accordingly, the number of trainees will increase from the existing 4,700 social welfare civil servants to about 8,000, including administrative and nursing staff performing welfare duties. The civil servant welfare education completion system was first introduced nationwide by Seoul City in 2021 to improve the professionalism of social welfare civil servants, following the “Bangbae-dong mother and son case” in Bangbae-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul, where a man in his 60s was left unattended with his disabled son for five months before being discovered by a social worker in the winter of 2020.

Also, starting this year, the education program’s name will change from “Mandatory Education for Social Welfare Civil Servants” to “Social Welfare Leader Education,” and the education method will be operated in various ways, including face-to-face and non-face-to-face education and continuous online education using the Seoul Welfare Education Center’s participation platform.

The Social Welfare Leader Education is exclusively operated by the Seoul Welfare Education Center of the Seoul Welfare Foundation, which has expertise and experience in welfare education. The annual required education consists of a total of 8 hours, including a 3-hour basic course and a 5-hour job-related course. The basic course will cover learning to enhance welfare sensitivity, such as “welfare ethics” and “human rights,” while the job-related course will focus on improving job skills through learning such as “basic understanding of case management” and “counseling techniques.”

In addition to the Social Welfare Leader Education, the center separately offers specialized courses such as “Care SOS Center Education,” “In-depth Case Management,” and “Understanding Mental Health” to support the professional expertise of civil servants in charge of social welfare. The center has also added healing education courses to prevent burnout and relieve stress among frontline field workers, allowing civil servants to choose these courses.

Kim Sang-cheol, CEO, said, “Seoul City has been striving to strengthen the capabilities of welfare civil servants to reduce welfare blind spots by introducing the civil servant welfare education completion system for the first time nationwide,” and added, “Starting this year, we will strengthen systematic job competency education not only for social welfare civil servants but for all civil servants performing welfare duties to create a safe welfare city, Seoul.”