Social Welfare And Social Development In South Africa

The White Paper for Social Welfare adopted by Parliament in 1997 provided a policy framework to shift social welfare from meeting the needs of a small minority to a social development perspective. This policy change has required the complete overhaul of th e current welfare system with far-reaching implications for human and financial resources policy and legislative reform in line with the new constitution and the Bill of Rights changes in institutional arrangements and trade-offs between different sectors and interests in society. In the past social work education was not developmentally orientated and tended to borrow uncritically from North American and European theory and practice. There was a lack of South African and African literature in the field of welfare and development. In addition to the need for the renewal of social work education in South Africa, there was also a need for the re-orientation of existing social workers to implement new welfare thinking and to app r a ise theory and practice critically.

This book is written by Southern African social welfare, social work, social development, social security and social policy academics, practitioners and advocates who have varying degrees of experience. The authors who contributed chapters to this book added their perspectives to ongoing debates about academic areas in the region. Thus, the book’s primary objective is to discuss the development of social welfare and social work in Southern Africa. In doing so, it endeavours to contribute to the existing body of knowledge on social welfare and social work in the region. The chapters are examined through different theoretical lenses and historical perspectives. In this book, African scholars, academics, and practitioners provide a deep and critical reflection of social welfare, social work, and related disciplines during the colonial and post-colonial era, a period characterised by a deliberate move by Africa’s political administrations to focus on nation-building and to attempt to make Africa a global player. Despite being endowed with rich natural resources like minerals; agriculture; and solid family and extended family life, the continent is weak globally. Furthermore, the book focuses on the pre-colonial period – a golden thread running through the chapters. The book discusses the colonial era when Western countries’ capture and oppression of Africa characterised the continent’s history. This book is an appropriate publication at this point in our history; a resource that can be used to generate appropriate narratives and questions within the social welfare and social development sector, particularly on delivery, education and training.

Social welfare and social development discusses social welfare practice in global and regional context. It addresses issues of poverty, unemployment and populations at risk within South Africa and the role of the social welfare system in South Africa in tackling these issues. The book outlines the theory and practice of social development as the practice through which the South African government aims to address social challenges. The first edition was unique and groundbreaking in its explication of social development and is still valued for these insights. The second edition includes updated discussions, reviewing changes in the social landscape since 2005.

All recent books on international social work mention Africa only briefly and few engage with the broader field of development studies. This book focuses solely on the unique African context engaging with issues relating to social work and development more broadly thus enabling a deeper examination and more complex and nuanced picture to emerge. Unlike most academic works, this book highlights multiple practitioner voices, with authors or co-authors that have recently been or are currently practising social workers. As an edited book, it draws from both academic research as well as lived practice experience, supported by strong theoretical positioning and guidance in introductory chapters, drawing on African literature, wherever possible. Looking at case-studies from Lesotho, Botswana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Namibia, Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, Zambia and Tanzania and covering established areas of practice such as child protection; working with older people; working with people with disabilities; mental health; and mainstream services targeting women as well as emerging areas of developmental social work practice, such as humanitarian assistance in post-conflict situations; work with immigrants and refugees; and the training of community-based workers, this book takes a future-oriented perspective that aims to move beyond well-worn critiques to envision constructive and sustainable futures for social work and social development in Africa from a critical perspective.

Social workers have been involved in social development for many years, but it is only recently that these ideas have been explicitly applied to social work practice. The result is that a new and distinctive approach to social work practice known as developmental social work has emerged. Developmental social work emphasizes the role of social investment in professional practice. These investments meet the material needs of social work's clients and facilitate their full integration into the social and economic life of the community. Developmental social workers believe that client strengths and capabilities need to be augmented with public resources and services if those served by the profession are to live productive and fulfilling lives. Although developmental social work is inspired by international innovations, particularly in the developing countries, it highly relevant to practice in the United States and other Western nations. In the first book to lay out a clear framework for developmental social work practice, chapters will focus on the traditional fields of social work practice, showing how social investment strategies can be adopted by social workers in their daily practice with populations including families and children, people with mental illness, homeless youth, people with disabilities, the elderly, and those in the correctional system. By facilitating clients' full social and economic participation through a variety of strategies, such as microenterprise or asset-building programs, practitioners can help bring about meaningful changes in clients' lives and throughout their communities. The editors and contributors offer a highly original exposition of developmental social work theory and practice, providing a definitive guide to an emerging and exciting new approach to practice.

James Midgley provides a broad overview of social welfare, outlining key institutions, terminology, historical research, and approaches. He also details reasons for the existence of international social welfare and the challenges that arise from it. The author includes an important section on applied international social welfare that addresses the concerns of practitioners--concerns that have been neglected in much of the literature in the field. An entire section of the book is devoted to issues of social work practice, social developments, the activities of international agencies, and their collaborative efforts. While practical application is an important focus of the book, several chapters deal with key theoretical debates in the field. The author also includes descriptive chapters that provide comprehensive accounts of world social conditions and social welfare institutions.

The social development approach seeks to integrate economic and social policies within a dynamic development process in order to achieve social welfare objectives. This first comprehensive textbook on the subject demonstrates that social development offers critically significant insights for the developed as well as the developing world. James Midgley describes the social development approach, traces its origins in developing countries, reviews theoretical issues in the field and analyzes different strategies in social development. By adding the developmental dimension, social development is shown to transcend the dichotomy between the residualist approach, which concentrates on targeting resources to the most needy, and the institutional approach which urges extensive state involvement in welfare.