Developmental Social Work

Developmental social workers are social entrepreneurs
Across the world, entrepreneurship is going through a revival at a time when, at least at the grassroots or local community level, there is renewed interest in self-employment, informal sector or small business development. The failure of governments, corporations and markets to generate enough jobs for the unemployed is in large part the reason for the burgeoning of small individual or micro-enterprises across diverse contexts. Enterprise Facilitation is a respectful person-centred approach that rests on the belief that people, not formulas, create and run successful businesses, in so doing constantly reshaping the economic landscape. It was founded on the assumption that self-motivation,

For example, there is confusion as to what these terms developmental social work actually mean in practice and this has limited its application (Patel and Hochfeld, 2012). The terms social development, developmental social welfare and developmental social work are very familiar in social work hence confusing practitioners. According to a study by Patel & Hochfeld (2012) in an attempt to explain what developmental social work and social work mean, respondents idetified key concepts that influence their understanding of developmental social work such as empowerment; capacity building development; and participation. These are concepts that match established social work conventions in that they are commonly used in individual and community empowerment practice. However, other aspects of developmental social work such as high impact interventions, generalist interventions, economic development, and broad human rights promotion and advocacy, were cited less frequently by the respondents. This clearly shows that social workers are not aware of some important concepts in develomental social work which challenges their practice. Social workers have difficulties in comprehending the inter-relatedness between the social and economic aspects. One of the focus group participants said that: Social workers have a poor

Social work is one of the most overworked, underpaid, under-recognised and distressed professions (Rwomire & Raditlhokwa, 1996). It is critical that the profession demonstrates its role and contribution to addressing social development goals, such as the MDGs, more directly (Lombard & Wairire , 2010). Social work is a young profession in most African countries and it still faces poor recognition. A critical challenge for social workers to be recognised for their role in social development is to demonstrate competency in implementing developmental social work. The Association for Schools of Social Work in Africa (ASSWA) can play a role in developing and promoting social work in the Africa region (Lombard & Wairire ,