The Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Policy sent the Law on the Basics of Professional Work in the Social and Child Protection System to public consultations and submitted it for opinions to all cantons in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
For the first time, this law regulates and regulates the professional status of professional workers in the field of social protection, prescribes clear standards of professional work, introduces mandatory licensing, supervision and continuous professional training, and precisely defines the professional autonomy and responsibility of social workers.
“For the first time, a unified framework is being established at the level of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina that protects the name and activity of social workers and sets uniform standards of behavior throughout the system,” explained Federal Minister of Labor and Social Policy Adnan Delić.
He added that the text of the law was prepared in cooperation with experts from the social protection system, representatives of centers for social work, the academic community and international organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, so that the solutions were based on practice, experience and international standards.
“We have been saying for years that the status of social workers must be clearly regulated. With this law, we are doing this concretely. We are regulating their professional position, responsibility and public powers. When a social worker leads the process of removing a child from the family or makes other difficult and sensitive decisions, he must have clear professional authority and institutional protection. This is a question of the dignity of the profession, but also of the seriousness of the state towards the work these people do,” said Delić.
He reminds that the issue of the official status of social workers in terms of criminal law has not yet been resolved.
“For more than three years, we have been proposing to amend the Criminal Code of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina so that social workers would be given the status of official persons in the sense of criminal law. Today, they testify as witnesses in court proceedings, even though they are the ones who led the professional proceedings and made decisions. In addition to the fact that this status is important from the point of view of their protection and safety in the field, it is also important for the sense of institutional recognition and dignity of their profession. We will not give up on that request either,” said Delić.
After public consultations, the Law entered the official parliamentary procedure, which will go through all rounds of reading, given that the Law is in the form of a preliminary draft, the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Policy announced.
