China has released official guidelines on social workers, recognizing them for the first time as a profession requiring technical expertise. The need for professional social workers has increased dramatically in recent years. But their status needs official recognition.

Eighteen ministries were behind the new report which calls for improvements in both their income and the career training. Social work is set to be added to China's budget, and central and local governments are set to step in to help training them.

With origins in charitable work,,the concept of social work has been widely accepted in developed countries for more than a century. The ratio of social workers to a nation's population is seen as an important indicator of the capabilities of a country's social service system. China currently has 200 thousand social workers, far from enough to meet the demand.