Title: Portfolio Committee on Social Development, National Assembly, Cape Town DEVELOPMENT OF CAPACITY AND RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION OF SOCIAL SERVICE PROFESSIONALS
1Portfolio Committee on Social Development,
National Assembly, Cape TownDEVELOPMENT OF
CAPACITY AND RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION OF
SOCIAL SERVICE PROFESSIONALS
2PURPOSE OF PRESENTATION
- To address the Portfolio Committee on the
following - Development of capacity in the national
provincial departments of Social Development - Relationships between different social
development professionals and - Recruitment and Retention Strategy for Social
Workers.
3CURRENT SITUATION
- Sector is not well organised
- Lack of norms and standards for delivery of
social services - The need for an HR Plan
- High demand for SWs (Govt departments, NGOs)
- Overlapping of roles and responsibilities
- Exodus of social workers to other sectors other
countries - Fragmentation in training and utilisation of
other social service professionals - Impact of new legislation on the demand for
services such as Children's Bill, Older Persons
Bill, Substance Abuse legislation, etc.
4Challenges Current Scenario
Province Current Status Current Status Requirement (Childrens Bill benchmark) Requirement (Childrens Bill benchmark) Shortfall for 1st Year (GAP) Shortfall for 1st Year (GAP)
Province No of Social Workers (NGO and Govt) No of Auxillary Social Workers (registered SAW) No of Social Workers (1st Year of implementation) No of Auxillary Social Workers (1st Year of implementation) No of Social Workers No of Auxillary Social Workers
Eastern Cape 755 88 1439 1180 684 1092
Free State 313 45 916 808 603 763
Gauteng 1096 287 2000 1950 904 1663
Kwazulu-natal 965 106 1100 884 135 778
Limpopo 453 21 1007 731 554 710
Mpumulanga 256 15 530 411 274 396
Northern Cape 206 106 307 344 101 238
North West 298 14 318 235 20 221
Western Cape 721 277 1068 1,139 347 862
National 42 0 90 0 48 0
TOTAL 5105 959 8776 7682 3671 6723
5MEASURES TO ADDRESS CHALLENGES
- Recruitment and Retention Strategy for Social
Workers - Aim
- Determine conditions that impact on social work
as a scarce skill. - Provide guidelines for the recruitment and
retention of social workers within the
profession.
6OBJECTIVES OF THE STRATEGY
- Provide a framework for the recruitment
retention of social workers as learners and
professionals - Reposition the social work profession to meet the
challenges of the 21st century. - Promote a positive image of social work as a
career of choice. - Improved conditions of service.
7SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS
- Impact of globalization.
- Availability of more lucrative offers in other
sectors locally or internationally. - Push and pull factors.
- Social workers recognized as being well trained
internationally and locally. - High demand for their skill.
- Lack of social workers in NGO sector.
- High work load and poor working conditions lead
to burnout and poor quality of services to
recipients. - Training of social workers in IHLs and low
subsidies.
8SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS cont...
- Training of social workers in IHLs and low
subsidies. - Universities training 500 social workers pa.
- High intake levels but low output after (4yrs).
- Universities with the highest numbers of
registrations still have low numbers of fourth
year students e.g Unisa and KwaZulu-Natal, with
only a few graduating. - It is not clear from the current data, how many
students actually complete the fourth year of
study.
9SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS cont
- In discussions with learners there is generally a
perception that the social work profession is not
a financially lucrative career, offers very
little benefits and few career path
opportunities. - Lack of institutional support and capacity for
training programme e.g. student work placements
on internship. - Insufficient social workers in the country.
- Utilisation of social workers in non-essential /
non-professional tasks. - Poor working conditions which result in
malpractice, unprofessional conduct and
disciplinary procedures against social workers.
10STRATEGIES
- Recruitment and Selection
- Recruitment and publicity material
- Recruitment drives in high schools to educate
learners about the profession - Open recruitment days by department and
universities - Job fairs or career guidance processes
- Predefined scholarships
- Data base to monitor turnover, vacancy levels and
migration patterns - Recruitment of social workers back to profession
or sector
11Education, Training and Development
- Education, Training and Development
- Student training
- Balance between strict selection criteria and
meeting demand - Career guidance to ensure informed choice
- Align curriculum and practical demands of work
- Scholarships for student Social Workers
- Creating opportunities for training in specialist
areas - Broadening the scope of further education
training - Management training
12Education, Training and Development cont
- Additional subsidies for social work education
- Financial support during placements in practice
- Proper selection and training of assessors or
supervisors - Staff development (based on skills audit and
national skills strategy) - Adherence to CDP
- Self development and accelerated refresher
courses aligned to performance management
programme - Training of peer educators to support new social
workers - National forum to ensure integration of training
with practice - Exchange and Twinning Programmes
13CONDITIONS OF SERVICE
- Compensation and Remuneration
- Non-monetary strategies
- Improvement of working conditions
- Promotional and career opportunities
- Special training opportunities
- Monetary Strategies
- Remuneration and employee benefits
- Incentive schemes linked to achievement of
targets - Retention allowances (e.g. scarce skills/rural
allowances) - Bonuses
- Merit awards
- Payment of study debts
- Bursary Schemes
14DEVELOPMENTS
- NEW JOB DESCRIPTIONS FOR SOCIAL WORKERS
- Generic job descriptions, which provide
opportunities for career pathing - up to deputy
director-level (Levels 7 to 11) - Opportunities for specialization created through
new job descriptions - Uniformity in utilization of social workers in
government facilitated - Remuneration packages for social workers in
government were improved through a process of
re-grading - Job descriptions for Social Aux Workers on is in
process of being finalised - MTEF Bid submitted to NT for an additional 3000
SAWs pa over the next three years to meet demands
of legislation
15DEVELOPMENTS
- Developed a proposal on scarce skills allowances
within the framework of Public Service Scarce
Skills Strategy of the DPSA - Proposal currently under consideration by Heads
of Social Development before submission to
MINMEC, MPSA consultation with Organised Labour
16DEVELOPMENTS
- NEW JOB DESCRIPTIONS FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
PRACTITIONERS (CDPs) - Generic job descriptions up to deputy
director-level (Levels 5, 7 to 11) within the
occupation - Uniformity in the utilization of CDPs in social
development - Remuneration packages for CDPs to be improved
through a process of re-grading and is awaiting
MPSA advice guidelines for implementation
17DEVELOPMENTS
- SCHOLARSHIPS
- 190 scholarships to the amount of R2.8m
provided to social work learners - Outstanding fees of 36 students were paid up
- Funds for scholarships requested from Treasury as
priority for next MTEF period to cover tuition,
boarding and lodging, stipends for field
placements, etc. - Recruitment, placement and training of Social Aux
Workers
18DEVELOPMENTS
- OTHERS
- Career fairs conducted in all provinces where
learners are recruited to study social work - Establishment of a Unified Professional
Association is being facilitated. A referendum
supporting this process was conducted and
positive feedback was received - An Indaba held to discuss social work as a scarce
skill - A first phase capacity building programme
conducted in all provinces for all social
services professionals. Further funding is
required for 2nd phase role-out - High political support e.g. higher subsidies for
social work training
19DEVELOPMENTS
- OTHERS
- Bursaries with focus on Sustainable Livelihoods
offered to 15 students at Univ. of KZN (1 PhD
14 Masters) - HWSETA funding - Learnership for CDPs
- Unit Standards for fundamentals and Core
completed (ETDP SETA) - Electives to be developed by SGB with HWSETA
assistance - SACSSP participates
20 Overview of Service Delivery Improvement
Strategy....
I have a clear idea of where I'm going
I know what I want
I can see it coming together
I can see the benefits
Mindset
Confirm Operational Plan Detailed Planning
Strategy, Scoping and Focus
Gain Commitment and mobilise
Programme Phases
M E
Resource/ Enablers
- Create emergent strategy recruitment and
retention strat. - Norms and stds. for social service delivery
- Develop HR Plan based on outputs of norms and
stds. - Information M Systems
- Shared vision
- Clear accountabilities
- Workstreams in place
- Steering Group
- Programme Director
- Design blueprint
- Detailed Processes Mapped
- Process management
- Implementation plan
- Requisite skills and capacity
- Financial resources
- Support and participation from key stakeholders
- Monitoring Evaluation
- Post implementation reviews
KeyActivities
Critical Milestones
2007/8
2008/9
2009/10
- Completed implementation plans
- Costed norms and stds.
- Blueprint for rollout
- Human capital plan
- Piloting of implementation plan
- Implementation of Human Capital
- plan
- Contracting students through scholarships
- against set quota
- Recruitment of student social workers
- Recruitment of SAW and SW
- Creation of a mgt framework
- Improvement of working conditions
21SERVICE DELIVERY
- The Service Delivery Model for Developmental
Social Services - Reconstruction of social development institutions
- The development paradigm
- Service integration
- Social welfare service delivery
- Target groups
- Nature and scope of community development
services - Service providers and institutional mechanisms
- Norms and standards
- Monitoring and evaluation of the services
22SERVICE DELIVERY cont
- Interventions
- Implementation of SDM by all service providers
- Compliance with service norms and standards
- Human resource plan
- Development of other professional and
semi-professional categories
23RESTRUCTURING
- The national and provincial departments are all
undergoing restructuring to re-position
themselves towards delivering social development
services - NDSD restructuring is in the process of being
finalised - Minister approved the high-level structure in
March 2006 - The new post establishment is finalised and on
route to the Minister for approval.
24RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DIFFERENT PROFESSIONS
- Social Service Occupations
- Social Workers
- Community Development Practitioners
- Probation Officers (Provinces)
- Child and Youth Care Workers (Provinces)
25RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DIFFERENT PROFESSIONS
- Complimentary role
- Development welfare developmental welfare
- Development role CDP
- Welfare role Social Worker
- Implementation in a coordinated and integrated
manner developmental social welfare services
26RELATIONSHIP cont.
- SW focuses on the condition/situation of an
individual and how that impacts on him/her and on
the family/community/society - SW reactive, rehabilitative, secure care,
- CDP focuses on the situation of the household and
how it impacts on the ability of the household to
support the member/s - CDP preventative, early intervention, investment
27RELATIONSHIP cont.
- Social development has a much broader conceptual
framework whilst community development has a
specific place as a method, process and strategy
within social developments broader framework in
addressing poverty and inequalities.
28PROPOSAL
- It is proposed that the Portfolio Committee takes
note of - Development measures to address the challenges
such as - - capacity building initiatives
- recruitment and retention strategy for SWs
- relationships between social service
professionals