Abstract
As a profession, social work only began developing in Vietnam in the last twenty years. In 2011, the Vietnamese government approved a national programme aiming at incorporating social work into formal health settings in Vietnam for the first time in the history of the country, including mental health care facilities. It is well known, however, that Vietnamese people stigmatise seeking services from formal mental health settings; yet, they frequently seek help from Buddhist temples and other informal systems. In this paper, I will (i) review the systems of mental health service delivery in Vietnam, including Western-style formal systems and Buddhist temples, and (ii) propose an exploratory model of service delivery where the emerging social work profession will play the liaison role between formal and informal systems.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1242-1258 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | British Journal of Social Work |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 1 2015 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2013 The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.
Keywords
- Buddhism
- mental health
- service delivery
- social work
- Vietnam
