Media, trade unions and politicians have during the last years described social workers untenable work situation, and research shows that social workers are using strategies as sickness presence to deal with the imbalance between demands and resources. There is an interest in deepening knowledge of the phenomenon of sickness presence among social workers and to analyze the underlying causes that lead to the fact that social workers attend work while they are sick. The purpose of my study is to broaden knowledge for sickness presenteeism among social workers. I wanted to contribute to a better understanding of sickness presenteeism as phenomenon by analyzing social workers experience and wanted my study to focus on detailed descriptions of situations, events and feelings. Therefore I used a qualitative approach and based my study on individual interviews with 11 social workers. The social workers who chose to participate in the interviews are all women. I found several common strategies in the social workers descriptions, which were organized into three themes: loyalty, economy and resignation. The analysis was based on two different kinds of perspectives: one focusing on power and the other focusing on gender. The result shows that sickness presenteeism among social workers can be understood as a result of their attempt to live up to the prevailing male norms in society through paid work and to support the family, while they at the same time is expected to live up to the traditional image of ”a good girl" who prioritize the needs of others before her own health. The needs of others can appear in the form of, for example; clients, colleagues, family finances or the organization.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Social Service Management / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Forensic social work is a fairly new concept in the South African context. However, the activities of forensic social work began with the dawn of the profession itself. In recent times the demand for social workers in court has spiraled. The researcher endeavored to explore the perceptions and experiences of social workers functioning in the courts. Further, the problems that they encountered were also examined. The results of this qualitative study stem from in-depth interviews with thirteen social workers. The main findings indicate that the majority of social workers had not received any training in legal processes prior to their first experience in court. Social workers also perceived legal officials to be lacking in training in respect of child related issues. Social workers are generally called to testify in relation to their expertise of a specific child, and not in relation to their expertise of subject matter. In view of the demands placed upon social workers to appear in court, it is recommended that social workers endeavor to organise themselves into a group that can lobby for the recognition of social workers as experts. It is the researcher's contention that such a concerted effort by social workers will improve the status of the profession in the legal system. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2001.

South Africa has experienced a drastic shortage of social workers. This shortage has affected many social welfare organizations, particularly those who offer services in the area of substance abuse. According to a recent study conducted by Earle (2008) many reasons could be ascribed to the high social work turnover, these include: poor working conditions; poor compensation of work; lack of resources and support; and increased demands for services. Hence, social workers are experiencing work stress, burnout and compassion fatigue taxing their personal and professional coping strategies which could lead to staff turnover. The primary aim of this study was to understand the work experiences, coping strategies and organisational retention of social workers in Gauteng inpatient substance abuse treatment centres. The study had an exploratorydescriptive design, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative paradigms to explore the work environment of the organisations and participants. Purposive sampling was used to select and divide the participants into three categories: entry level social workers; experienced social workers and social workers that had left the substance abuse field. Data was collected through conducting indepth interviews and through a questionnaire completed by the representatives from in-patient substance abuse treatment centres. This questionnaire was piloted with an in-patient treatment centre in KwaZulu Natal. The results of the quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, which were illustrated via tables and figures and the qualitative data were analysed using thematic content analysis. The main findings of this study confirmed most of the reasons for work stress and burnout that may lead to staff turnover identified in previous studies by Ross (1997) and Earle (2008). These findings are incorporated into a retention model developed by the researcher. The model incorporated five stages: stage one focussed on the reasons for entering the substance abuse field (personal interests, undergraduate studies and/or accidental); stage two explored preparation of social workers by organisations after entry to the field; stage three identified four general factors that effects the sustainability of social workers (external/environmental influences, organisational factors, the type of client population, career opportunities and personal factors); stage four explained the individual differences in coping responses (negative or positive) to job stress either through fight responses, self-care strategies for retention or flight responses, staff turnover; lastly, stage five focussed on what organisations can do to reduce staff turnover. These findings can assist the occupational social worker to identify these retention challenges and develop strategies to reduce the risk of staff turnover.