NUS Society of Social Work Students (SSWS) was recently invited to attend the Asia-Pacific Social Work Students Conference, held on 13-17 August 2018. It was organized by the Hong Kong Social Workers Association and they had kindly extended their invitation to Singapore and other countries such as Taiwan, China and Macau.

The topic of the conference this year was “Pre-school and Primary School Children with Special Education Needs”. The conference included agency visits to organizations working specifically with children with special education needs and facilitated discussions amongst the students to brainstorm how practitioners can improve our assessment and intervention with this clientele population and their families.

This conference enhanced our understanding of the educational and developmental needs of children with special needs and their families. Through the interactions with social work students from other countries, we also learnt to have a greater appreciation of how aspects of the macro-system such as cultural values and political environment influence social work practice. In particular, we got glimpses of the social work landscape in Hong Kong through the agency visits and the conversations with social work students from Hong Kong.

Click here to view report of learning outcomes.