Redesigning Practice Education in Social Work
as Service-learning Modules

Sulina Green
Department of Social Work
Stellenbosch Univesity
sgreen@sun.ac.za

The focus of this paper is on how the Department of Social Work at Stellenbosch University went about redesigning the existing practice education modules for use as service learning in the social work undergraduate curriculum. The paper hopes to convey something of the motivation and rationale for making the changes and then to give an idea of some of the measures that were taken.

To contextualize the paper, the historical context of social work education is briefly outlined by touching on several key dates. The situation up to 1994 that kept social work and social work education from responding sensitively to the basic development needs of the majority of people in South Africa is sketched.

Then a situational analysis is presented of the socio-economic context of social welfare and social work in which the future education and practice of social work has had to be positioned. After 1994, South Africa’s emerging democracy had to settle into a new social welfare system, and social work was confronted with socio-economic concerns such as poverty and inequality; unemployment; malnutrition, infant mortality and teenage pregnancy; violence, abuse and neglect; illiteracy; and a shortage of housing and public health services. These are just snapshots of the wider socio-economic context in which students have to do service learning.

The paper then highlights the changes that were made in social work and social work education in post-apartheid South Africa. In order to understand the challenges of social work and social work education in post-apartheid South Africa, two kinds of changes that influenced both the social work profession and higher education need to be examined. These are the design of a policy framework for social welfare and social work, and the design of a new structure for higher education.

After 1994, the ANC government had to review all existing policies and had to transform old policies and design new policies to create a well-functioning democracy. This included a comprehensive review of the welfare system of the country. Several official documents were published that also informed social welfare policy. These documents are: the Reconstruction and Development Programme, the Constitution of South Africa, the Bill of Rights, and the White Paper for Social Welfare.

While education was influenced by changes in government policies for welfare and social work that presented a changing paradigm for social work, it was also strongly influenced by changes in the South African higher education structure and policy. The paper briefly discusses some of these changes and how social work education was affected by these changes.

The response of the Department of Social Work to the abovementioned situation took the form of guidelines that were followed to redesign practice education to fit into the new welfare and higher education contexts. These guidelines are: redeployment of knowledge, clarification of the place of social development in the curriculum, selection of an appropriate approach to service learning, collaboration with partners in social work, and continuous evaluation.

A brief explanation is then given of service learning in the social work curriculum. Service learning in the social work curriculum did not only have to respond to the political, socio-economic and environmental changes impacting on the profession, but also to the changes in higher education policy. Therefore the challenge of the redesigned curriculum is to expose students, in accordance with the purpose of social work and the purpose of the Bachelor of Social Work programme, to learning opportunities where they can respond to these changes and meet these requirements.

To offer these service-learning opportunities to undergraduate students, the Department of Social Work collaborated with service providers to arrange placements for students. To this end the department has entered into partnerships with welfare agencies in more than twenty communities in and around Stellenbosch. These placements provide students with opportunities to integrate and apply theory to practice, and to examine and test practically the knowledge, skills and values studied in theoretical courses, as well as to achieve exit-level learning outcomes of the service-learning modules.

The agencies where students are placed include pre-school facilities, places of safety for children, children’s homes, youth care center’s, homes for disabled people, homes for older people, correctional service facilities, hospitals, schools and a number of NGOs in the field of child and family welfare. The service-learning modules require that students do casework, group work, community work and administration.

Students are also involved in projects such as:

These organized service-learning activities are based on identified community goals and offer students ample opportunity to reflect on the service-learning activity in such a way that they gain a better understanding of the curriculum content, a deeper appreciation of the discipline and an improved sense of civic responsibility.

The paper ends with some ideas about the promise of service learning in higher education and the social development context in South Africa. In conclusion it can be said that social work educators now need to do ongoing and systematic research on the attempts that were made to change the curriculum to fit into the new welfare and higher-education contexts in South Africa. Research will enhance the process of the revision of standards for the social work profession in order to meet the demands of the South African society in general and of higher education in particular.