Ms Lee Kaiyi has worked for over 9 years as a Medical Social Worker (MSW) and last year received the Promising Social Worker Award. She currently handles casework and counselling at IMH, with her main roles that of conducting recovery group work for patients and caregivers towards their rehabilitation and recovery goals, linking patients and their caregivers to resources and support services, addressing care and safety risk issues, and helping long-stay patients regain their independence.

Kaiyi states that NUS Social Work has equipped her with essential skills for casework management such as being non-judgmental, believing in the client's rights to self-determination, upholding the worth of the client's dignity and taking a strengths-based approach to a case. For community work, the systemic approach and systems thinking have helped her to be mindful of the big picture, and guided her efforts to bridge gaps and advocate for clients' needs at the national level.

Her advice for current Social Work students is to uphold the ethics of social work and be strong in one's principles. She firmly believes that a social worker's role is not just about settling a case and passing it on to another social worker to complete the other parts of the job but to assess and intervene each case in a holistic manner. She also advises students to continually upgrade professionally and personally in order to become a more effective provider.