| dc.description.abstract | The effective and efficient delivery of social services in South Africa has suffered as a result of the apartheid policies and practices. Now that we have legitimate political structures in our country, social workers in local authorities have the opportunity to take their rightful place in our social service delivery system. In order to enhance the quality of life in South Africa, we must ensure that people are not serviced at a distance. The broad intention of this study is to critically examine social work practice in local authorities in South Africa in order to identify the pertinent elements of a model of practice and to clarify the role of the local authority social worker. Five theoretical issues are identified within structural Marxism which was selected as the theoretical orientation for this study. These are the individual-society relationship, basic
needs and services, social change, community participation and professionalism. The literature review of the h-uman services rendered by local authorities in the United Kingdom and the U.~nite-d-S-ta-tes of America, and in South Africa. of which there is a Raucity of research, sensi-ti-ze-d-the res-earcher to the-relevant issues and debates, and informed the empirical study.Ten (10) directors and fifty (50) social work practitioners of social services departments completed the mailed questionnaires. The response rate was, 24,39% and 27,47%, respectively. The empirical data has provided important information about the rationale and types of social services provided by local authorities in 1992-1993. To varying degrees, casework, group work, research and community work/development are practised. While the latter method was
purported by many respondents to be their priority, casework was found to be the most popular method. These services were often provided because no other services existed in the area or were inaccessible. In most cases, the social services departments, unfortunately, did not have a mission statement nor terms of reference to guide their planning and interventions. As the majority of the South African population were excluded from the political process, local authority structures were discredited by many people and this caused anxiety among many practitioners and tensions with the communities. There was a high level of co-operation between social services departments and their respective health departments. The conclusions drawn from this study are that local authorities should provide social services through a comprehensive social services department which should include, among other, the health department; and that local government is an important site for the practice of developmental social work. Other researchers could build on this foundation so as to develop clearer policy and practice guidelines for this field of speciality. | en_US |
