Contemporary Trends in PSW Teaching: Challenges and Opportunity to Expand

Abstract

Psychiatric Social Work teaching has completed seven decades in India which was started with master course in medical and psychiatric social work at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai in 1948 followed by various schools of social work across the country but unfortunately even after two year full time or part time course they are not counted as a mental health professional; still they need two more years of specialized training in mental health as Master of Philosophy in Psychiatric Social Work (M.Phil. PSW) which was offered in just a few institutions. Recently the Government of India formulated manpower development schemes under the national mental health programme to address the shortage of men power in mental health. Under this scheme, 25 centre of excellence in mental health are already stabilised and various post graduate departments were upgraded and M.Phil. PSW course is started or will be started. This figure is in raise in Government intuitions and few private institutions also. The prominence of social work in mental health is expected to enhance by this effort as highly trained social workers will be available to practice in the mental health field but there are some challenges to overcome to get the maximum outcome from this opportunity to expand.      

Keywords: Psychiatric social work, mental health, men power development, India