Post-Forum Press Release | "Who Will Guarantee Social Workers? On the Legal Responsibilities and Professional Boundaries of Social Workers within the Social Safety Net" Forum

Recent controversies over criminal attribution in child abuse cases have triggered intense collective anxiety within the social work community. The Taiwan Association of Social Worker Education, the NPO Self-Regulation Alliance, the Judicial Reform Foundation, and the Taipei Social Workers' Union jointly held the forum titled "Who Will Guarantee Social Workers? On the Legal Responsibilities and Professional Boundaries of Social Workers within the Social Safety Net" yesterday (the 9th) (for the transcript of the forum, please refer to the link). Within less than a day of opening registration, the 500 available spots were instantly filled. Registrants were mostly frontline social work practitioners and students, along with quite a few lawyers, demonstrating the professional community's high level of concern regarding this issue. Starting from the case of the social worker involved in the Kai-kai case, legal and social work experts in attendance discussed from both legal and practical perspectives whether social workers possess a legal guarantor position. They also pointed out that the judgment outcome of this case concerns not only an individual case, but will also serve as a weather vane for the professional development of social work. If judicial judgments fail to clarify the boundaries of rights and responsibilities, leading to the law excessively holding frontline personnel accountable during systemic failures, it may ignite a "drain" of social workers, resulting in a talent gap and systemic collapse within the social safety net, thereby harming the rights and interests of the overall service recipients.

Clarifying the Guarantor Position: The Professional Essence of Social Work Lies in "Assistance" Rather Than "Guarantee"

Regarding the phenomenon in judicial practice where prosecutors tend to impose a "guarantor position" on social workers, Professor Wang Huang-yu, Dean of the College of Law at National Taiwan University, does not believe that social workers hold a guarantor position. This is because social work involves a large amount of "referral" and cross-system cooperation, and relationships with other professions are built on the foundation of trust rather than supervision, with no hierarchical command relationship between professions, but rather parallel collaboration. This conforms to the principle of trust in criminal law, where each profession is responsible for its own domain and can mutually trust one another. Wang Huang-yu pointed out: Taking the child abuse case as an example, if a social worker has referred a child to a licensed babysitter according to regulations, they can reasonably trust the babysitter's professionalism. If the babysitter commits intentional injury, the perpetrator should bear personal responsibility. Furthermore, criminal liability must be based on "foreseeability," and legal judgments should return to the time of the act rather than expanding liability under the influence of post-event public opinion. Even though society places a high value on child protection, excessive blaming does not necessarily help solve the problem.

Professor Lu Ying-chieh from the Department of Law at National Chung Cheng University pointed out through a comparison with German cases: According to Taiwan's regulations, social workers conducting visits for child adoption and fostering are neither co-bearers of parental rights nor able to intervene in a child's family life to become "actual protection bearers" providing intensive care and companionship. To impose a criminal law guarantor position on social workers, it is necessary to emulate German social law, where the state's duty of protection is explicitly delegated to social workers by law (exercising public authority), and social workers are endowed with sufficient "authority and capacity" to conduct intensive care and companionship. Without corresponding authority and capacity, criminal liability should not be imposed.

Dilemmas in Practice: Systemic Flaws Should Not Be Borne by Individuals

Professor Wang Shu-yuan from National Chi Nan University approached the issue from the essence of social work, arguing: "The role of a social worker is that of a helper. If society blindly expects social workers to 'solve' all problems, or even demands that social workers bear full responsibility for those they assist, this will bring tremendous powerlessness and a sense of disability to social workers, not only weakening service effectiveness but also severely damaging their mental health." Professor Wang is particularly concerned about vicarious trauma inflicted on the whole society following major incidents, pointing out that social trauma should not be left to turn into antagonism and accusation, but should instead be transformed into "positive reflective and practical strength."

Regarding the practical operation of adoption social work, Lai Yueh-mi, adjunct associate professor at the Graduate Institute of Social Work of National Taiwan Normal University, analyzed that although social workers have standardized procedures, before the "Kai-kai case" occurred, short-term placement prior to adoption was excluded from government placement resources, creating a systemic loophole. Lai Yueh-mi stated: The precondition for establishing a "commission by omission" under criminal law is that the actor possesses a "guarantor position," meaning a legal obligation to prevent the occurrence of the result. However, the focus of a criminal law guarantor position is "close care," whereas the frequency of adoption social workers visiting once a month does not fall within the scope of close care. Especially since criminal law does not allow for "joint and several liability," if from the perspective of an ordinary person the social worker had no foreseeability regarding someone else's malicious abuse, criminal liability should not be imposed.

Unclear Boundaries of Rights and Responsibilities: Grassroots Social Workers Deeply Trapped in Legal Risks

Shen Yao-yi, vice chairperson of the Taipei Social Workers' Union, spoke bluntly from a frontline standpoint: Grassroots workers generally deeply feel that the judicial system lacks an understanding of social work practice, worrying that professional boundaries will ultimately be solely dictated unilaterally by prosecutors and judges. He pointed out that prosecutors tend to argue that social workers have a guarantor position based on past contracts between social workers, the maternal grandmother, and the babysitter, and misrepresent the duties social workers ought to attend to by using service manuals and other content. Because the daily work contexts of many social workers are extremely similar to that of the involved social worker, they deeply fear becoming the next target of investigation and accountability.

Conclusion: Establishing Cross-System Division of Labor and Rational Accountability Mechanisms

The forum concluded by pointing out that the construction of the social safety net is based on "horizontal division of labor" rather than "vertical supervision." Various professional fields (such as medical care, childcare, social welfare, and the judiciary) should each take responsibility within their own professional scope. When tragedies occur, society should reflect on systemic issues rather than seeking the instant comfort that "criminal punishment cures all ills." Experts in attendance unanimously called for strengthening the dialogue between the legal and social work communities in the future to ensure that judicial judgments can understand the limits of professional practice, thereby constructing reasonable legal defense boundaries for frontline social workers to maintain the stable operation of the social welfare system.