The Milieu Weighing Down Social Workers’ Effectiveness and Efficiency in South Africa: A Literature Review

Abstract

Although ironically social work profession has achieved many things globally, it is unfortunate that in African countries, many challenges still befall it and therefore affecting the social workers’ effectiveness in effectuating their duties and roles. This is a serious quagmire that call for urgent address and redress. This paper has adopted a review of literature methodology. The following environment has been found to weigh down social workers’ effectiveness and efficiency: poor funding or lack of finances to enhance their performance; lack of infrastructure and resources to support social workers’ tasks and roles; poor supervision affecting social workers growth and their professionalism, poor implementation of policies to secure social workers in their service delivery milieu, and challenges associated with competence levels among the social workers. The paper recommends for a strong synergy between the government and other stakeholders in order to improve the social work environment in South Africa.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n27p1379