Developmental Social Work Case Study

Scarcity of resources
Insufficient financial support for social welfare programmes can be partly attributed to problems social workers face in their practice (Rwomire & Raditlhokwa, 1996). Scarcity of resources is a problem that challenges implementation of developmental approach to social work practice. Social workers are overburdened but under-resourced (Cornelia, 2005). This means they have a lot of work to do but they are given limited resources. The strengths based approach considers the social worker as a facilitator and partner in helping the community reach its full potential, therefore it is his or her duty to regularly bring people with similar interest, talents, skills and knowledge together so as to share information and support each other (Gray, 2002). For them to do this it is important that they are fully equipped. This may include human

The application of developmental social work over the past era has been characterized by vibrant debate between academics, policy-makers and practitioners about what the differences are between this approach and mainstream social work; and the pace of change towards a developmental model has been widely acknowledged as slow (Patel and Hochfeld, 2008). A particular area of argument has been the place of therapeutic social work in this model. Conceptual confusion about developmental social work has been common, especially amongst those who pitch developmental social work against work with individuals with social problems. That is, conceptual clarity continues to remain a barrier in the theoretical development of the approach including a lack of clarity about its methods and its domain. Lack of clarity on what developmental social welfare entails has a major impact on the progress of developmental social work. This can be achieved through continuing professional development. At the same time, the curriculum should prepare social work students for developmental social