- Title
- A pragmatic approach to social development: Part 1
- Creator
- Gray, Mel
- Relation
- Social Work: a Professional Journal for the Social Worker Vol. 33, Issue 3, p. 210-222
- Relation
- http://academic.sun.ac.za/soc_work/journal.htm
- Publisher
- Universiteit Stellenbosch, Department of Social Work
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 1997
- Description
- This is the first part of a two-part article which documents the conclusions of a group of experienced social work practitioners regarding the theory of social development and its applicability to social work practice in South Africa. Part I examiners the theoretical underpinnings of social development which is advanced as primarily a normative macro-policy perspective within which to situate a changed focus for social work-practice. It is believed that social development does not present anything new for social workers and could even be described as the ecosystems perspective in a new guise. Like the ecosystems perspective, social development attempts too much. (Part 2 will be published in the October l99l edition.) The paper is based on the first Developmental Social Work (DSW) Coursework Master’s Programme taught at the University of Natal in Durban (UND). This two-year Part-time programme was designed specifically for social work practitioners who had graduated at least two years prior to resuming study but preferably who had been in practice for more than five years. Ten students enrolled for the programme, between them they had nearly one hundred and fifty Years of practice experience (Table I ).All were in positions in their work situation where they were able to influence their organisation or the social workers whom they were supervising towards the introduction of developmental social work. In addition to the developmental social work course, students also studied advanced social work theory, research and social policy, and were required to conduct a research project. The first half of the DSW course involved a theoretical study of social development using Midgley (1995) as a foundation text. Students were provided with a detailed course outline and a substantial reading list. In addition, the Social Development Issues Journal was made available to them, with students borrowing and circulating the various issues among themselves. These were the minimum reading requirements which students supplemented with their own literature studies. The second half of the programme involved in-class presentations where students were required to critically evaluate social development theory and to examine its applicability to their particular practice context, suggesting ways in which DSW has in the past, or might in the future, be applied in their organisations. An essay on this topic constituted their course assignment. It is on the content of these essays and class discussions that this paper is based.
- Subject
- social work; South Africa; Developmental Social Work (DSW); University of Natal in Durban (UND)
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/30911
- Identifier
- uon:2728
- Identifier
- ISSN:0037-8054
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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