The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) commits to strengthen the social work practice in the country through the establishment of a DSWD Academy.

DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian believes in sustaining responsive Filipino social workers amid the ever-changing landscape of the social welfare practice. There has to be a continuing learning facility in the DSWD or in the country that foster specialized training for social workers since the world does not stop, it keeps on evolving, according to the DSWD chief.

Secretary Gatchalian envisions that by 2028, the DSWD Academy shall be the center for excellence in the Asia and Indo-Pacific Regions that will provide sustained high -level of social welfare and development practice for Social Workers, Social Welfare Assistants, Community Development Practitioners, and other paraprofessionals.

The DSWD Academy’s mission, meanwhile, is to provide globally competitive capacity building opportunities for professional development using both international and local resource materials on social welfare and development, and social protection.

The DSWD Academy is a professional learning institute that offers capacity-building opportunities to develop competencies needed in the delivery of social welfare and development programs and services and in strategies for community development.

Formerly called the Social Welfare and Development Center for Asia and the Pacific (SWADCAP), the DSWD Academy  will serve as a learning facility that will provide specialized training, capacity-building activities, and other learning development interventions to social workers to enable them to meet the ever-changing social work landscape.

The DSWD chief cited the importance of the Academy, which is located at the SWADCAP facility in Taguig City, saying “there are new technologies out there in terms of social protection, disaster camp management.”

“While we are developing and fostering upgraded skills for social workers, we are also empowering social welfare assistants and private individuals who are conducting social work practice,” he said.

To operationalize the Academy, Secretary Gatchalian signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with University of the Philippines Open University  (UPOU) Chancellor Melinda DP. Bandalaria and heads and representatives of the  ASEAN Social Work Consortium-Philippines (ASWC-PH) member-associations. 

Under the signed MOU, the member-organizations of ASWC-PH and the UPOU will serve as learning service providers for the DSWD Academy as well as partners of the Department in providing technical assistance to social welfare and development intermediaries and other stakeholders.

Part of the DSWD Academy’s thrust is the empowerment of social welfare assistants, including those who work at the local government units (LGUs) as social welfare aides, and early child-hood development workers, among others, to learn the skill sets of social workers.

The SWADCAP building was designed by Mr. Leandro V. Locsin, who was proclaimed as “National Artist of the Philippines for Architecture” in 1990. 

Republic Act No. 10066, otherwise known as the “National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009”, was signed into law in 2010. As the SWADCAP building is designed by Architect Locsin - a National Artist for Architecture - it is considered as an “important cultural property of the country” which must be protected from exportation, modification or demolition.

It was in 1981 that the SWADCAP building, dormitory, household facilities, and vehicle were turned over to the then Ministry of Social Services and Development (now DSWD) and the Center became known as the Social Welfare Development Center: A Comprehensive Approach to People’s Participation (SWADCCAPP).