Department of Social Services, Bangladesh

The Department of Social Services (DSS) is one of the leading Government Departments of People's Republic of Bangladesh under the Ministry of Social Welfare.
The Department of Social Services was established in 1961. The mandate of the Department of Social Services is to provide services to the vulnerable groups of society, the poorest of the poor, the marginalized and the disadvantaged groups. Our service goes further than just bringing services to these groups. It is our brief to deliver on our mandate in a manner that will engage and empower communities to participate actively in the improvement of their quality of life so as to build their self-reliance, which is a pre-requisite to sustainable development.The Department of Social Services (DSS) is working to ensure Social Protection and Social Safety nets for the poor vulnerable people of the country as well as socio-economic development, rehabilitation and reintegration, poverty reduction, human resource development, community empowerment and other development activities for the vulnerable aged persons, the persons with disabilities (PWDs), orphans, children at risk, destitute, poor and helpless persons. Moreover, DSS is running a good number of programmes for poverty reduction and human resource development. Among the programmes, development services provide for juvenile delinquents, training and rehabilitation of the socially disadvantaged women, counseling, training and rehabilitation of orphan and vulnerable children, development and rehabilitation of vagrants, safe custodian women, adolescent, destitute and helpless. The programmes of the DSS which have undertaken much earlier are now in conformity with the provisions of the Roadmap for National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction (NSAPR) of the Government and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The main objective of the department is to reduce the poverty of hardcore poor through human resource development and to organize the poorest segment of people and aware them about their rights, problems and requirements and building up capacity for their self-sustainability. The Ministry of Social Welfare (MoSW) is one of the important ministries of the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh working for the human resources development. The Department of social Services (DSS), under the Ministry of Social Welfare (MoSW), has been implementing several multidimensional programmes like socio-economic development and protection of rights besides social safety-net for the destitute, poor, orphan, senior citizens, widows, vulnerable children, persons with disabilities (PWDs), and marginalised people of the country. The Department of Social Services has a glorious history in the implementation of programmmes since 1961. Januray 2 was declared as the “National Social Services Day” and enlisted in category B by the Cabinet Division June 04, 2012. In the perspective of social philosophy and development policy, to inspire the social workers who are involved in this mammoth task, in 1999 on the eve of the inauguration ceremony of “Shamajseba Bhaban” the Honourable Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh declared January 02 as “National Social Services Day”. Through the celebration of this day a speed has been infused with a new life to the social services programmes which revived the social workers