Doctoral Degrees (Social Work)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Social Work) by Author "Bredell, Sandra"

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    A work-life perspective on the subjective wellbeing of social workers
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-12) Bredell, Sandra; Engelbrecht, L. K.; Stellenbosch University. Facuty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Social Work.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Social work was declared a scarce skill in South Africa in 2003, as confirmed by the Department of Labour and listed accordingly in the sector skills plan of the Health and Welfare Sector Education and Training Authority in 2008. The profession has since been struggling to survive in the welfare system, which resulted in a challenge to render services to people in need, without enough social workers to do the work. The focus of the Recruitment and Retention Strategy for Social Workers, as mandated by the Minister of Social Development, was to highlight aspects that can have a negative influence on social workers and ultimately on the quality of services rendered to service users. To exacerbate the situation, social workers are facing many challenges in South Africa, such as poor salaries, poor working conditions, insufficient infrastructure, unsafe environments, lack of resources, very high caseloads, and high turnover; to name a few. During the COVID-19 pandemic, an array of situations needed the attention of frontline social workers, who already faced high caseloads and who were expected to push aside their own families’ challenges to render services in often unsafe environments in uncertain times. The aim of this study was to gain an understanding of the subjective wellbeing of social workers from a work-life perspective. Social workers’ wellbeing is important to uphold service delivery of a high quality, while the social workers’ wellbeing and happiness in the profession deserve immediate attention. This study shows the connection between the subjective wellbeing of social workers in both the work and life domains and connect it to the eight dimensions of wellness; in other words, their holistic wellbeing. The conceptual framework of the study synthesises work-life balance and subjective wellbeing with the eight dimensions of wellness, namely emotional, financial, social, spiritual, occupational, physical, intellectual, and environmental dimensions. In this qualitative study, the exploratory and descriptive research designs were deemed appropriate, together with an interpretivist paradigm. It allowed for in-depth exploration of particular issues (work-life perspective and the subjective wellbeing of social workers) that have been studied insufficiently, and developing new ideas on the topic, as well as to connect the information to the eight dimensions of wellness. Non-probability purposive sampling is criterion based and was employed in this study. The participants (11 frontline social workers and 12 supervisors), who contributed in their personal capacity, provided rich and valuable data for the study. The participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule with open-ended questions. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the interviews were conducted using the Zoom platform. For this study, Tesch’s thematic, descriptive approach was utilised to analyse the data. The findings from the empirical investigation revealed that the social worker participants felt stressed and overworked and that they do not receive adequate supervisory support, other than related to work issues, and they admitted to struggling with work-life balance. The participants echoed that there is a spill over from the work to the family domain and vice versa. Therefore, the challenge is not so much to balance the work roles with the rest of one’s life, but rather to balance the different roles in one’s life. The key recommendations were for social workers to undergo South African Council for Social Service Professions (SACSSP)-accredited courses, that prospective social work students should be screened for the course, that organisations should commit to support their staff, and that wellness programmes and the orientation programme for the first two years of employment of frontline social workers should be registered with the SACSSP for Continuous Professional Development points.