Social workers urged to move from margins

As a profession at the coalface of societal problems, social workers are awfully quiet in public discourse and advocacy work, say budding social workers.

South Africa is all too familiar with the view that the country, through its social development  intervention programmes, is becoming a nanny state. Discussions rage on about the merits of the child support grant, the proposed youth wage subsidy and, more recently, the outlawing of drinking on Sundays to counter our Phuza Nation status.

These important debates about quality of life are at the core of social work, yet the profession has been absent in guiding the nation.

This observation and the role of social workers in promoting social and economic equity were presented at an event hosted by the Discipline of Social Work to mark World Social Work Day. The annual event is coordinated by the International Federation of Social Work under the theme Promoting Social and Economic Equality.

What has happened to the engaged and socially active profession?

Masters student Naledi Selebano argued that the profession needed to be more politically active. She said that the problems faced by social workers on the ground were a reflection of political decisions, therefore South Africa needed more politically engaged social workers in order to effect change.

“Social workers cannot continue to pick up the pieces left by inept policies that only intensify the status quo (inequity and societal ills).” 

Responding to the theme of promoting social and economic equality, third year student Sameera Ismail said she felt that the South Africa of today had brought about more damage with inequity becoming more deeply rooted.

Basic necessities are scarce, education is in crisis and health services are far from being equipped and compassionate, she said.

Sameera urged her fellow students to not restrict themselves to contract terms but to go beyond job descriptions, engage in advocacy work and become educators raising the quality of life in South Africa.

Loyalty to the profession

It is a well known fact that the status society affords to the profession has declined and that social workers are among the more poorly paid professionals in the public sector. Students are familiar with this fact, and yet they seem unwavering in their professional choice.

Nkosinathi Sibanyoni wastes no time defining what he is studying when asked by enquirers. To him social work equates to social engineering and is on par with the other scarce skills in the country. It is a profession that is changing lives and society, says the masters student.

First year student Anele Masikane convincingly argued that the value of the profession was ever present and could be heard in the “calling issued by society through the endless problems the country faces on a day to day basis”. Masikane noted that future doctors, teachers and presidents were trapped in escalating inequity and that upcoming practitioners, through their work, needed to overthrow impediments.

Nobulalu Mfengu, Deputy Director in the National Department of Social Development, delivered a speech on behalf of the Department.

She noted that the theme and the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development were a reminder that “social work should not veer from its historical commitment to and founding principles of promoting human rights, social justice, social transformation and effectively serving and responding to the needs of the most vulnerable in society”. 

Her speech concurred with the view that the role and contribution of social workers is to a large extent determined by the social policy of the government of the day and the appropriateness of the social work curriculum in universities.