**3. Pitfalls associated with offering social work interventions**

#### **3.1 Social work curriculum deficit**

Evidently, despite the country of South Africa ensuring that 18 schools of the Institutions of Higher Learning have social work programmes with the hope that the

#### *Prospects and Pitfalls Experienced by Social Workers Working in a Confounding Environment… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105604*

country becomes self-sufficient in the number of social workers to tackle many of its conglomerations of social challenges [7], apparently service delivery in many areas managed and run by the social workers appear to be poorly run. This finds evidence from incidents of service delivery protests in ubiquitous corners of the country. While there are many other professionals who are also in the management, this phenomenon possibly points to professional gaps manifested by the social work graduates the country is producing [30]. Indeed, several researchers, such as Osei Hwedie, Mupedziswa Mel Gray and Kang'ethe [6, 23, 24] have in the last few years of decades been drumming up the social work curriculum paradigm shift. This is after a realisation that the social work interventions are not aptly working. This has also been through a realisation that the curriculum the continent has been using was crafted for a western world environment setting, and not to address the challenges Africa is experiencing. In fact, it has now become poignantly clear that the curriculum has been giving African countries and other continents which may be using it a raw deal. This has motivated many social workers such as this researcher to think that the use of the current social work curriculum presents a developmental pitfall that needs to be fixed if African countries such as South Africa are to achieve the requisite developmental standing [23].

However, the need for a curriculum paradigm shift has been driven by the spirit of indigenization that believes that the curriculum should be socio-culturally informed as well as respond to the particular needs of people in a particular geographical locale [6, 24]. While the pace of indigenization appears to be taking a snail's pace, it is incumbent upon the government of South Africa, whose institutions of higher learning are producing a significant number of social workers, to provide resources to enlist the support of all the social workers to facilitate the indigenization of their interventions. This may mean engaging in various indigenization workshops, where gurus of indigenization such as Osei Hwedie, Mupedziswa, Mel Gray, and Kang'ethe can be allowed to facilitate such workshops. This researcher believes that it is only after our interventions respect the indigenous communities' buy-in, their attitudes, and thinking that the social work can bring the desirable developmental change. Clinging to a western-centric curriculum presents a developmental deficit as well as a pitfall that must be tackled [25].

#### **3.2 Weaker social work research development in the country**

While this researcher has hailed the indulgence in contemporary research as one of the prospects of social work interventions, and South Africa is rated high in social work research development, especially when compared with other African countries, this researcher still thinks that social work researchers have not been active to compete with other closer disciplines such as psychology and sociology [23]. While this observation calls for more rigorous empirical research, this researcher thinks that social workers should not form a scapegoat for their non-competitiveness, by pointing out that their profession is practice-based [31]. The fact that they are practice-based even makes it more imperative to do research that will applicably inform the practice. Although the country has not produced enough social workers and in 2020, had only produced 36,002 social workers, a shortage of clinical-based social workers has been documented [8]. It is this inadequacy of the social work numbers that make social workers in the country suffer immense stress, burnout and lower job satisfaction [32]. Evidence on the ground validates that most South African social workers employed in various domains suffer high caseloads amid poor working conditions. This is an environment that may explain productivity gaps and probably reasons for frequent

service delivery strikes [22]. This has probably contributed to a lack of capacity to implement policies and programmes [32].

Perhaps a snapshot check in the google scholar account of the country's social workers shows very low citations, which could herald their uncompetitiveness in the global research, with especially social work researchers from the Black dominated universities apparently producing a very low volume of research. While the google account details do not form a perfect measure of research engagement, it is an important one, and point to a few of the factors ranging from a researcher's total research output (citations), the weighted strength of the researcher's research output (H-index) and the strength of the articles themselves (i10 factor) [33]. This researcher believes that other global research engines such as the Scopus, web of science follow a similar research analysis [34]. This researcher has also noted that research articles for very important domains such as the coronavirus takes too long to be published by the countries' social work researchers in the South African context, while articles from the developed countries such as those in China are very timeous. It is unfortunate that the students while engaging in various research reports lack locally published work and are instead forced to use publications from the western world. An attempt by some studies to carry out some research on the stigma surrounding the coronavirus in the southern African context has forced the researchers to use data from the developed countries as African research output is little or takes too long to be published [35]. On the contrary, social work researchers from the western part of the world appear to be doing well, judged by how fast they produce outputs in the international google engines. While infrastructural challenges and funding have a share in the contributions, this does not form a feasible excuse for low research output, as there are some well-funded universities, with globally competitive infrastructure in the country.

#### **3.3 Metaphysical beliefs systems that are anti-developmental**

Inopportunely, African countries with South Africa leading the pack continue to face myriad development deficits due to its people's embracement of metaphysical beliefs that run counter to the ethos of development [36]. Conceptually, metaphysics is a reflection on the fundamental nature of being and connotes people's philosophy or belief system [36]. Evidently, one's belief system is important as it shapes their identity, and many people see reality through their metaphysical lenses. In fact, people fathom or construct reality through their metaphysical lenses [36–38]. There is therefore an inextricable relationship between people's metaphysics or belief systems and their spirituality, as well as their practices. Further, metaphysics in the African context revolves around the spirit beings and their impact on driving reality and power. This also determines people's cultural orientation, morality, social life, capabilities, customs, enjoyments and day-to-day practices [39]. This means, therefore, that the construction of ethos and norms of livelihood in a particular society may reflect that society's metaphysics.

Inopportunely, South Africa and its neighbouring countries present a metaphysical environment that defies the rules, norms and practices of social and community development. Perhaps this is because of innumerable traditional practitioners who influence people's belief systems. For example, statistically, 80% of the South African population seek health care from traditional healers/sangomas alongside other practitioners such as spiritualists [9]. This heralds that they keep playing a major part in African health systems and therefore inculcating to the adherents, a metaphysical

### *Prospects and Pitfalls Experienced by Social Workers Working in a Confounding Environment… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105604*

environment that is anti-developmental. In fact, in some instances, the healers' practices defy the country's constitution. Since the healers' therapeutic processes do not match those of the biomedical practitioners, people who trust and listen to them may get the wrong diagnoses [40]. This is evident in the early years of the fight against HIV/AIDS when the healers claimed they were therapeutically strong enough to facilitate healing to those who were HIV positive. Such people because of the faith they held in the healers' treatment modalities, neglected or shunned the advice of biomedical practitioners who are credited, through the application of ARVs, to guide the treatment process of those living with HIV/AIDS [41].

Some research validates that those who stuck to the healers and shunned the prescriptions of the biomedical authorities faced early death or had to be rushed to the biomedical clinics when they were too weak to survive [42]. Research by Kang'ethe [42] in the Tsabong District of Botswana revealed how destructive it was when societies shunned the direction of the biomedical and followed the dictates of healers and spiritualists. This means that the metaphysical beliefs that the society held then of the effectiveness of traditional healing powers to treat HIV/AIDS, held them in ransom, making some ignore the voices of social and community development practitioners. In some rural areas of South Africa, these beliefs, especially in the earlier stages of the HIV/AIDS campaign, have made efforts of the social workers and other social service professionals experience serious campaign hiccups as some members of the society stuck to the prescriptions of healers arguing that they have been under the traditional diagnoses of the traditional healers and spiritualists since time immemorial and could therefore not abandon them for the biomedical practitioners [42].

Moreso, religious metaphysics continues to pose challenges to forces of social and community development through the adherents' faith that ignores the governmental adherence and practices of social and community development. The case at hand is when the religious leadership discourages their church members from accessing bio-medical health delivery systems or engaging in the immunisation of their children [43]. The practices of Bazezuru of Botswana, a religious grouping under the leadership of Johane Masowe, hold the belief that attending modern clinics or being attended by biomedical practitioners is wrong. This belief has confounded the management and leadership of the campaign against polio immunisation of children and taking them to school in Botswana.

#### **3.4 Mythical environment confounding community development endeavours**

Myths are fallacious beliefs about a phenomenon and remain a confounding factor in the battle and management against diseases. However, their development arises from the inability to succinctly understand a particular phenomenon [44]. They, therefore, shape the beliefs of people and their behaviours [45]. For example, when people fail to understand the aetiology and epidemiology of a disease, this prompts the development of myths. Myths become misleading and anti-developmental and are usually fear-evoking as societies grapple to adapt and embrace the meaning embedded in them [45]. This calls for the forces of social and community development to come up with interventions to motivate their demystification [46]. This is because of the danger that fallacious belief systems can pose to development. They make the management of people's attitudes and thinking so that they can conform to ethos and practices of social and community development a difficult preoccupation. They also form a palatable environment of stigma and stigmatisation [10].

A mythical environment that has been associated with HIV/AIDS in Southern African countries, such as South Africa and Botswana, made the campaign against the management of the disease a very expensive one. This is to demystify the disease and convince people about its dynamics as well as the basic facts about it. The campaign had also to do with efforts to destigmatize the disease [47]. While the campaign against HIV/AIDS in South Africa has not been won as the country continues to spend many billions on the buying of ARVS, the presence of a conglomeration of myths surrounding the disease remains a serious social and community development challenge [48].

The development of myths surrounding coronavirus since the advent of the disease in 2019 has been worrisome as many of the myths runs counter to the forces of social and community development demanding a perpetual education to convince members of the society of the aetiology and epidemiology of coronavirus [49]. Perhaps why it is difficult to control myths is because the phenomenon has economically been exploited by cultural traditionalists such as traditional healers, spiritualists, herbalists, and witches and wizards [9] who make the communities they hail from, believing that they have powers to arrest some of the diseases that the biomedical practitioners have failed to offer a solution for or are still struggling for an answer. These traditional practitioners wish that the communities completely miss out on the knowledge about the basic facts of disease for their own pecuniary advantage [9].
