ABSTRACT
Wuhan started introducing social work positions in its welfare institutions in 2010 under the initiation of the Wuhan Civil Affairs Bureau. In 2012, a relatively large-scale purchase of social work positions from NGOs was launched to place social workers in communities and institutions. Sources of funding came mainly from the welfare lottery. In 2016, there were 48 social work professional service organizations in Wuhan, and a total of 580 professional social work professions, some of which worked under the purchased of services arrangement. However, the lack of understanding of such services displayed by administrators and frontline cadres in the host settings creates unrealistic expectations and leads to demands that threaten the development of professional social work services. Professional social work service development is still at an early stage in Wuhan, with considerably more effort required to establish a proper model, and recurrent government budget to carry service provision forward.
