Abstract
Community work and community development have played a huge role in the development and empowerment of impoverished communities. Community development practitioners ensure the service delivery process through various programmes that are enabled by the department of social development. The aim of the study was to explore the current experiences of social work practitioners in community work and community development practice focusing on the Gauteng Department of Social Development regions. The study explored the experiences, opportunities, successes and failures of community work and community development practice.
Furthermore, this study adopted an explorative descriptive qualitative research approach and interpretivist phenomenological design. Purposive and snowball sampling was utilized to select the relevant participants. The interview method, guided by a semi-structured schedule and thematic analysis, was used to collect and analyse the collected data. The findings of the study revealed that social workers do practice as community development practitioners in the Department of Social Development focusing on programmes that aim at social change, development and self-reliance of the communities.
Moreover, social workers employed as community development practitioners attested to the rich knowledge community development has exposed them to. As a result, there is a wide range of opportunities for social workers in the Gauteng Department of Social Development community development sector, especially, at the higher-ranking positions. Communities are also exposed to a variety of programmes which aid in fighting poverty and unemployment. However, community development practitioners experience challenges such as political interference, unreliable partnerships, mandated goals by the government and unskilled officials, which have a negative impact on service delivery. Some of the study’s recommendations are to improve efforts in the provision of relevant training of staff members and officials, to speed up the professionalization process of community development, and for the scope of community development practitioners to be uniform across all provincial offices.
Keywords: Community development, Community work, communities, development, empowerment, department of social development, social workers, community development practitioner.