About Us

The healthcare system is at a crossroads today, having had to adopt newer, more humane, and user-friendly reforms to help redress the longstanding deficiencies and systemic gaps that have plagued it over the ages. The contemporary healthcare system needs to be both patient and high-tech at the same time – able to really know individuals, their lived experience, and their complex health requirements, and meet the expectations of both with both profound compassion and healthcare accuracy. This vision can be achieved only when the healthcare system takes a truly holistic approach, one that will not discriminate, disrespect, or ignore the various disciplines of healthcare professionals. This would not only empower the healthcare system internally but also allow it to gain a clear understanding of the entire gamut of health-related issues and tackle them comprehensively.

The field of Social Work plays a crucial role in ensuring the healthcare system is connected to the communities it serves. Health problems and issues can never be separated from the broader social canvas; they are closely woven into society, its structures, cultural backgrounds, and the inherent processes of human civilisation. As a professional field, Social Work has always supported the major human values and has proven them to be the most important in every life sphere. There is, therefore, a strong urgency for the contemporary healthcare system to give full recognition and incorporate this discipline, whether at the institutional, fundamental, or grassroots levels in the community, in order to be effectively responsive to the needs of the people.

It is with the greatest pride and honour that the All India Association of Medical Social Work Professionals (AIAMSWP) is bringing out the first issue of the Indian Journal of Health Social Work on the auspicious occasion of its 6^th Annual National Conference, 2019. The journal is devoted to enhancing the profession of Medical and Healthcare Social Work, providing its practitioners with more acute skills and knowledge to address the multifaceted and heterogeneous aspects of the healthcare system in our country. The Indian Journal of Health Social Work was listed in the UGC-CARE List, which has validated its academic merit and position as a high-profile academic journal in the subject.

The journal hopes to contribute to the practice knowledge and professional competencies of the Healthcare Social Workers in the country. It will strive to create new ways of thinking about old practices, critically review new methods and research discoveries, study existing prevailing psychosocial issues, and apply rigorous analytical thinking to bear on problems facing the social work profession. One of the main areas this journal will focus on is informing and influencing health-related policies and programmes to make them more responsive, equitable, and responsive to the multidimensional and ever-increasing health needs of the people of this country.

The journal will proactively seek to draw the attention of stakeholders and policymakers to the need to devise more humane, more inclusive, and people-centred health policies and programmes. The authors are strongly encouraged to submit original research, field-based experiences, and critical perspectives that can help bring the field of Healthcare Social Work closer to society. The journal will aim to establish an integrating intellectual framework – one that facilitates the connections between theory and practice, and facilitates multilevel interventions that have the capacity to positively affect populations by enhancing social and environmental frameworks. We are open to contributions across varied fields, including academic research, community organisations, and the practice environment.

We hope this journal will spark a vibrant and fruitful national discourse among social work practitioners, students, scholars, health researchers, policymakers, social service organisations and professional membership bodies – a discourse that will stimulate a productive reflection on how the field of social work in healthcare may have looked like, as it does today, and in the future.

We assure you, on behalf of the entire editorial team of this journal, that we will do all we can to ensure this journal thrives and reaches the pinnacle of scholarly excellence. Your ideas, comments, and suggestions are strongly encouraged, and your participation will be invaluable in continually improving the journal and leaving a permanent, significant imprint on the field.