Linking Social Work with Buddhist Temples: Developing a Model of Mental Health Service Delivery and Treatment in Vietnam

As a profession, social work only began developing in Vietnam in the last twenty years. In 2011, the Vietnamese government approved a national programme aiming at incorporating social work into formal health settings in Vietnam for the first time in the history of the country, including mental health care facilities. It is well known, however, that Vietnamese people stigmatise seeking services from formal mental health settings; yet, they frequently seek help from Buddhist temples and other informal systems. In this paper, I will (i) review the systems of mental health service delivery in Vietnam, including Western-style formal systems and Buddhist temples, and (ii) propose an exploratory model of service delivery where the emerging social work profession will play the liaison role between formal and informal systems.