EDITORIAL

Editorial

Prof Sulina Green

Department of Social Work, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

The success of social welfare intervention services depends on the implementation of strategies geared towards the development of human potential and the capacity of communities. These services are rendered at different levels of intervention for diverse target groups and have specific outcomes in mind. Against this background, the articles presented in this issue of Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk include the response of social work at different levels of intervention to the needs of target groups such as women, families, parents, children, offenders and caregivers.

The first article explores obstacles to the sustainability of community development cooperatives experienced by women and identifies considerations for enhancing the sustainability of such projects.

The next three articles offer insights into child protection services and family reunification services. The first article describes how the Family Assessment for Least Developed Countries (FA-LDC) instrument for information gathering can assist social workers with statutory investigations and managing high caseloads. The second article explains how the current strategies for emergency child protection are overly bureaucratic and emotionally disconnected from the child and family, because of the lack of a practice model to guide social workers. Then, the third article discusses the experiences of parents whose children are cared for in child and youth centres and emphasises their need for family reunification services.

Thereafter a pair of articles report on the experiences of professional people and parents with survivors of child sexual abuse and adolescents abusing substances. The first article discusses the nature of the challenges faced by professionals rendering services to survivors of child sexual abuse within the Victim-Friendly System in Zambia. The second article covers parents' experiences of parenting adolescents abusing substances and offers strategies to enhance their parenting.

The challenges for rehabilitation of sentenced offenders within the framework of unit management in the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) form the focus of the next article. It concludes that in order to optimise rehabilitation and unit management, the DCS needs to improve resources and infrastructure within correctional centres.

The last article in the issue investigates and describes the caregiver burden as experienced by family caregivers of persons with physical disabilities and offers meaningful recommendations.