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TABLE OF CONTENT
Module 1
South Africa and Transformation
2
Module 2
Masupa-tsela Principles and Values
26
Module 3
Masupa-tsela Praxis
39
Communication Skills Modules
41
Working with Communities
52
Working with Individuals
73
Working with Families
122
Working with Groups
144
Module 4
Participatory Action and Learning Research
146
Module 5
Masupa-tsela and Sustainable development
172
Module 6
Project Management Skills, Tools and Techniques
203
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SOUTH AFRICA AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION
1.Executive Summary
The purpose of this section is to expose learners to the history of South Africa in relation
to personal service towards the overall development of one’s country. In particular, it
brings to light the resistance of African people against the oppressive forces of colonialism and apartheid. In so doing, the role of individuals who had personally contributed
towards societal change or even sacrificed their lives in pursuance of the liberation of
South Africa will be focused upon. This section begins to illustrate the manner in which
individual efforts can facilitate social transformation. It also underscores the manner in
which such efforts are primarily driven by a high sense of patriotism, selflessness, courage
and valour on the part of certain individuals in society.
2. Outcomes
It is envisaged that at the end of the course students will:
•
have an understanding of the South African history in relation to personal service
vis-à-vis national development;
•
identify themselves with the key personalities of the liberation struggle and the val
ues that they had espoused;
•
link the politics of resistance against oppression to inta alia contemporary
struggles against poverty, crime, gender-based violence and other forms of abuse;
link the foregoing to Masupatsela praxis.
•
3. Objectives
The following objectives have been set for Masupatsela praxis:
•
•
•
•
•
2
4.Themes
4.1. Social Transformation in the context of SA.
The section will be split into three parts and focus on the following topics:
PART I
•
This section lays the foundation upon which learners can begin to understand the
antecedents that have shaped contemporary issues in South Africa. It begins with the
arrival of the Dutch colonialists led by Jan Van Riebeeck in 1652. It then traces land dispossession firstly in the Cape Colony as it ensued with the interaction of the indigenous
Khoisan and the white settlers. The expansion of European settlements by the Trek Boers
and eventual overrunning of the Khoisan by the Boers follows this development. It also
highlights the resistance of more organised tribes such as the Xhosa against colonial
encroachment and eventually culminates in the annexation of the Cape Colony by the
United Kingdom in 1795. By 1815 Britain had taken full control of the Cape and leading
to further movement of the Boers to the hinterland or “Great Trek”. Finally, the resistance
of the well organised Zulu kingdom against the Voortrekkers and the British army in the
1830s and the Anglo-Boer War of 1899 are examined.
•
To highlight the resistance of African people against colonial rule and apartheid;
To analyse the role of the liberation movements in facilitating the democratic
transition of 1994;
To profile the historical role played by youth leaders who acted as agents for
change and transformation in the apartheid era;
To provide learners with the tools to conscientise the youth of South Africa so that
they defend and sustain the country’s democracy;
To work and actively participate with progressive African and global forces in the
advancement of human development in South Africa, Africa and across the globe.
Youth Agents of Change
Early resistance to colonisation and land dispossession of African people.
The discovery of gold and diamonds in the late nineteenth century/The rise of the
migrant labour system and the erosion of the extended family in the African
quarters.
The periods under discussion in this section serve to highlight the changed pace of colonisation and consolidation of European settlements after the Union of the Republic of South
Africa was declared in 1910 between the Boer Republics and the British territories. It also
begins to highlight manner in which the discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold nine
years later, cemented European rule and the subjugation of the African people by the colonialists. The role of Africans as tools for European capital was reinforced during this phase
of industrialisation. The migrant labour system was duly introduced to guarantee maximum profits to mining companies at the expense of African well-being, central among
these being the erosion of the African family.
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•
Urbanisation and African poverty/The formation of the African National
Congress in 1912/ The Native question and the Land Act of 1913 and African
responses.
The discovery of rich mineral deposits led to rapid urbanisation of South Africa and the
rise of the African working class. It also gave birth to the present-day inequalities through
segregationist policies that ensured that Africans remained at the bottom of the country’s
socio-economic ladder. The Mines and Works Act of 1911, for example, limited black
workers exclusively to menial work and guaranteed the availability of cheap labour and
secured the better positions for white workers. The “Native question” is tied to this issue
which also saw the formation of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1912. However,
further land dispossession became a rallying call for African resistance. The “Native Land
Act” of 1913 set aside 7.3 per cent of South African territory as reservations for black people and barred them from buying land outside these areas. Deprived of the right to vote
or to strike, the black population had no means of political influence, and so the African
National Congress, and other resistance and liberation movements began to directly challenge this arbitrary rule. They were all initially badly organised and minimally effective.
The white governments pursued their politics virtually without obstruction (Adapted from:
http://www.southafrica-travel.net/history/eh_apart1.htm).
The economic depression of the 1920s, the rise of white poverty and the
introduction of social welfare in South Africa/The African Claims of 1943.
This section begins to chart the twentieth century colonial rule in the light of African resistance in a South African context. During this period, many Afrikaners had lost out in the
industrialisation of the country. This situation in turn led to what came to be termed as “the
poor White problem.” Also, the depression of the late 1920s compounded the already difficult living conditions of the Afrikaners. Initially, responses to Afrikaner poverty came
from the voluntary and religious sectors. Religious organisations such as the Dutch
Reformed Church or organs of civil society, for example, the Afrikaans women’s groups
were primarily actively involved in the amelioration of the living circumstances of poor
Whites. The state only became involved in earnest in 1910 after the Union of South Africa
came into being. Provisional schemes of relief were used to mitigate the plight of poor
Whites and concerted efforts got underway to create work opportunities for them. This
undertaking was pronounced after the government of General Hertzog came into power
in 1924 (McKendrick, 1987c:11). Hare and McKendrick (1976:76) sum up the welfare
scene from colonial conquest to industrialisation as follows:
•
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Prior to the 19th Century, there were no organised social welfare services as such. For
Blacks, the extended family system provided for the human needs of all people in accordance with tribal custom. During the first two centuries of colonial rule, White pioneer
families also provided for their own needs. In the 19th century the Dutch Reformed
Church, to which most Afrikaners belonged, was very active in early efforts to establish a
variety of social welfare services, and other religious denominations, Protestants,
Catholics, and Jews, followed suit. Gradually, voluntary welfare organizations, some with
international affiliations, such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, appeared in the
Cape Colony. [McKendrick, B.W. (1987c). The development of social welfare and social
work in South Africa, In B.W. McKendrick (Ed.), Introduction to Social Work and Social
Welfare in South Africa. (pp.5-19). Pretoria: HAUM; Hare, I., and McKendrick, B., (1976).
South Africa: Racial Divisions In Social Services, In D Thursz, and J.L Vigilante (Eds.),
Meeting Human Needs, (Volume 2): Additional Perspectives From Thirteen Countries.
(pp.71-96). Beverly Hills, CA.: SAGE Publications].
The African Claims inspired the Freedom Charter of 1955. In August of 1941, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great
Britain proclaimed the Atlantic Charter as a statement of the peace aims of the allies. In
December of 1942, the African National Congress [ANC] requested that a committee be
appointed to study the Atlantic Charter and thereafter draft a bill of rights to be presented
to the peace conference at the end of the world war. The report of this committee was the
“African Claims in South Africa”. This document stipulated the aspirations and rights of the
African people, and was unanimously adopted by the ANC. It however was spurned by
the
racist
regime
in
South Africa
at
the
time
(Adapted
from
http://www.liberateafrica.org/Mbeki.html).
•
Formation of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) in 1944 and
the beginnings of political militancy.
The formation of the ANCYL in 1944 was a firm beginning of the South African youth
movement. The adoption of its 1949 Programme of Action by the ANC transformed the
ANC into a truly mass national movement which formed part of a larger continental anticolonialist upsurge which saw a number of African countries attaining their liberation in
the wake of the 2nd World War. Within the ANC itself, the Youth League functioned as the
training ground for ANC cadres and leaders who played a prominent role in the life of the
ANC. The contribution of the Youth League to the political culture of mass struggles served
as a point of reference in the conduct of struggle by all democratic national youth forma-
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tions for the decades that followed its formation. Such has been the quality of the contribution of the Youth League in the overall development of the national liberation movement [Mbeki, T. (1996). Opening Address by the Deputy President Thabo Mbeki to 19th
Congress of the ANC Youth League 29 February - 3 March 1996, Durban, 29 February].
•
The end the Second World War in 1945 and the surge of African nationalism.
After the Second World War, the conflicts intensified and black workers went on a number of wild strikes. World War II was fought for world democracy. This was the slogan, and
the Atlantic Charter defined the aim of the war as the establishment of a new world order.
Black people had participated in that war and they identified with its objectives. In South
Africa this statement, issued by world leaders, went to the very root of the struggle which
blacks had been waging for centuries, and so they felt - like oppressed and exploited peoples the world over - that the war would bring an end to tyranny, and a new world order,
extending to South Africa, would be instituted. Black South Africans sought to make their
position known to the world and to the authors of this Charter (which they understood was
to be adopted at the peace conference as a guide to worldwide politics on matters affecting human rights). They prepared a document, a bill of rights, known as the “African
Claims”. This document was to be placed before the conference in order to make participants aware of the claims and demands of the black people of South Africa - particularly the Africans - who had been denied the very rights and freedoms discussed in the
Atlantic Charter. The “African Claims” thus constituted a basis for the mobilisation of the
African people, a call to action in the struggle for equal opportunities and participation in
the political system.
While the period before 1948 was inspired by the wartime statements of world leaders, it
was a period of reaction in South Africa. This reaction was expressed through increased
political activity; the miners' strike of 1946, boycotts and other protest campaigns by the
Africans, and passive resistance by the Indian people. There were resignations by members of the Natives Representative Council, a body established through an Act which had
also deprived Africans of the vote (i.e., the 1936 Act). These resignations had been prompted by the realisation that the Council served no useful purpose. The strike had been brutally handled by the police, and the Council had been rendered impotent. The Natives
Representative Council was the subject of political debate for many years. Some thought
that better use should be made of it; others boycotted it - regarding the Council as an
instrument designed to divert the attention of the African people from the central issue of
effective participation in the apportionment of political power in the country. In other
words, the years immediately preceding 1948 were marked by a climate of heightened
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political activity [O.R. Tambo (1973). Black Reaction to Apartheid, 1948-1973. Address to
the Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Syracuse, New York, USA].
•
The Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism and the institutionalisation of apartheid in
1948.
After the rise of militant politics in the African quarters, the whites became nervous and
helped the right-wing National Party to an overwhelming election victory in the elections
of 1948. The NP was led by D.F. Malan, who stood for drastic measures against the “black
menace” and coined the concept of “apartheid” and consistently enforced this devious
policy. From then on, it was not “only” about the separation of the races in the economic sector, but increasingly the private domain of all non-white people was regulated and
controlled as well. Marriages or any love or relationship between members of different
racial groups were forbidden. All interaction between the races was forbidden in the following: public institutions and offices, and in public transport or public toilets. More detrimental because of long-term consequences was the education system, the so-called Bantu
education, which tried to keep the black children at a very low standard (Adapted from:
http://www.southafrica-travel.net/history/eh_apart1.htm).
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PART II
•
The defiance campaign and the anti-pass drive of 1952/The Women’s March on
Pretoria and the defiance campaign of 1955 – The key role played by Lillian
Ngoyi
and other black women such as Florence Matomela and Frances Baard.
In September 1955 the issue of passes burst into the public eye again when the government announced that it would start issuing reference books to black women from January
1956. Women, now politicised and well-organised into a powerful resistance movement,
immediately rose to the challenge. No longer were they merely regarded as mothers,
bound to the home; they were independent and assertive adult South Africans. Passes
threatened their basic rights of freedom and family life and they were going to resist them
with everything they had. They were unequivocal in their message to the government: We
shall not rest until ALL pass laws and all forms of permits restricting our freedoms have
been abolished. We shall not rest until we have won for our children their fundamental
rights
of
freedom,
justice
and
security
[Adapted
from:
http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/governence-projects/womens-struggle/struggle6.htm].
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The ANC in exile from 1960 onwards/First actions of Umkhonto we Sizwe and
the beginning of the armed struggle in 1961.
•
•
The drafting of the Freedom Charter, 1955/The treason trials of 1954/The Birth
of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) 1958 and reasons behind its creation/The Rivonia
trials and the arrests of the majority of leaders of liberation movements 1963-64.
The Congress Alliance came together in the 1950s to organise the Congress of the
People - a conference of all the people of South Africa - which presented their demands
for the kind of South Africa they wanted. The demands called for the people to govern
and for the land to be shared by those who work it. They called for houses, work, and
security and for free and equal education. These demands were drawn together in the
Freedom Charter which was adopted at the Congress of the People at Kliptown on 26
June 1955. The apartheid government claimed that the Freedom Charter was a communist document. Communism had been banned in 1950, so they arrested ANC and
Congress leaders and brought them to trial in the famous Treason Trial. They also tried to
prove that the ANC and its allies had a policy of violence and planned to overthrown
the state. On the other hand the PAC was founded in 1959 after a number of members
broke away from the African National Congress because they objected to the ANC’s
non-racial policies and wished to take a bolder approach based more on mass action.
Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe was elected as the first president, at the founding conference held in April 1959 in Johannesburg [Adapted from: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/campaigns/cop/index.html].
8
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Matters came to a head at Sharpville in March 1960, when 69 anti-pass demonstrators
were killed when police fired on a demonstration called by the PAC. A state of emergency
was imposed and detention without trial was introduced. The black political organisations
were banned and their leaders went into exile or were arrested. In this climate, the ANC
and PAC abandoned their long-standing commitment to non-violent resistance and turned
to armed struggle, combined with underground organisation and mobilisation as well as
mobilisation of international solidarity. Top leaders, including members of the newly
formed military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) (Spear of the Nation), were arrested in
1963. In the “Rivonia Trial”, eight ANC leaders, including Nelson Mandela were convicted of sabotage (instead of treason, the original charge) and sentenced to life imprisonment. In this period, leaders of other organisations, including the PAC and the New Unity
Movement, were also sentenced to long terms of imprisonment and/or banned. The 1960s
was a decade of overwhelming repression and relative political disarray among blacks in
the country. Armed action was contained by the state [Adapted from:
http://www.info.gov.za/aboutsa/history.htm].
•
Defining moment of the ANC in exile - The Morogoro Conference, 1969.
In May 1969 a seven-day ANC Consultative Conference took place in Morogoro,
Tanzania. The main aim was to bring about a qualitative change in the organisational content of our movement in keeping with the new situation - namely a Revolutionary People's
War. The pace for the 1970s was set by the historic Morogoro Conference, where the strategy and tactics that would guide our movement in the pursuit of our cherished goal - total
liberation - were adopted. Thus by the early 1970s the strength of the people was manifested in the extensive strike waves, the militancy of the youth and students and the
oppressed people's clear identification with the armed struggle being waged-and won - in
neighbouring Angola and Mozambique.
•
The rise of the Black Conscious Movement in the early 1970s and Steven Bantu
Biko/The role of Biko in the collective struggle against apartheid.
In 1972 Biko was one of the founders of the Black Peoples Convention (BPC) working on
social upliftment projects around Durban. The BPC effectively brought together roughly
70 different black consciousness groups and associations, such as the South African
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Student's Movement (SASM), which played a significant role in the 1976, the National
Association of Youth Organisations (NAYO), and the Black Workers Project (BWP) which
supported black workers whose unions were not recognised under the Apartheid regime.
Biko was elected as the first president of the BPC and was promptly expelled from medical school. He started working full time for the Black Community Programme (BCP) in
Durban which he also helped found. In 1973 Steve Biko was “banned” by the Apartheid
government. Under the “ban” Biko was restricted to his home town of Kings William's
Town in the Eastern Cape – he could no longer support the BCP in Durban, but was able
to continue working for the BPC – he helped set up the Zimele Trust Fund which assisted
political prisoners and their families. (Biko was elected Honorary President of the BPC in
January 1977.) Biko was detained and interrogated four times between August 1975 and
September 1977 under Apartheid era anti-terrorism legislation. On 21 August 1977 Biko
was detained by the Eastern Cape security police and held in Port Elizabeth. From the
Walmer police cells he was taken for interrogation at the security police headquarters.
On 7 September "Biko sustained a head injury during interrogation, after which he acted
strangely and was uncooperative. The doctors who examined him (naked, lying on a mat
and manacled to a metal grille) initially disregarded overt signs of neurological injury."1By
11 September Biko had slipped into a continual, semi-conscious state and the police
physician recommended a transfer to hospital. Biko was, however, transported 1,200 km
to Pretoria – a 12-hour journey which he made lying naked in the back of a Land Rover.
A few hours later, on 12 September, alone and still naked, lying on the floor of a cell in
damage
Prison,
Biko
died
from
brain
the
Pretoria
Central
[http://africanhistory.about.com/library/biographies/blbio-stevebiko.htm].
•
The 1976 Youth Uprising.
The whole world reverberated with the barbarity of racist aggression in the 1976 nationwide uprisings which left more than a thousand of our youth dead, but marked a new
stage in our struggle, raising mass resistance on all fronts to unprecedented heights. The
1970s also saw the situation in the whole of Southern Africa change dramatically. The
political and military defeat of Portuguese colonialism in Africa significantly altered the
balance of power in favour of the revolutionary forces. There emerged people’s power in
Mozambique, and Angola. These countries evolved new kinds of state power, new types
of social and property relations, and therefore sharpened the confrontation between the
forces of progress and those of colonial and racist reaction in Southern Africa. Similarly,
the liberation of Zimbabwe was to be of great significance to our struggle [Adapted from:
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mk/forward.html].
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The rise of the mass democratic movement and the birth of the United
Democratic Front (UDF) - 1983.
The United Democratic Front (UDF) was an extraparliamentary organization established
in 1983, primarily in opposition to the government's constitutional proposals of that year.
It served as an umbrella organization of antiapartheid groups. Membership was open to
any organization that endorsed the principles of the ANC's Freedom Charter. Affiliates of
the UDF included the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South
African National Student Congress (Sansco), the National Union of South African Students
(NUSAS), and the Congress of South African Students (COSAS).Following clashes with the
government, the UDF was effectively banned - i.e., its political activities were proscribed
- under the terms of the emergency regulations of February 24, 1988, and many of its affiliates were reorganized under the guise of a new political coalition. The UDF disbanded
on August 20, 1991, declaring that its major objectives had been fulfilled.
4.2 Mass Democratic Movement
The Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) was the name of an informal coalition of antiapartheid groups during the 1970s and early 1980s. As a formal organization, the MDM
was established as an antiapartheid successor to the UDF after the 1988 emergency
restrictions effectively banned the UDF and several other opposition groups. Even after
1988, the MDM was a temporary loose coalition of antiapartheid activists with no permanent constitution, no official membership rolls, no national or regional governing body,
and no officeholders. Like the UDF, the MDM drew much of its support from the black
community; a condition for affiliation with the MDM was adherence to the provisions of
the ANC’s Freedom Charter.
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The MDM gained prominence in 1989, when it organized a campaign of civil disobedience in anticipation of national elections scheduled to take place in September of that
year. Defying the state-of-emergency regulations in effect at the time, several hundred
black protesters entered “whites-only” hospitals and beaches. During that month, people
of all races marched peacefully in several cities to protest against police brutality and
repressive legislation. When the UDF was unbanned in February 1990, most MDM leaders and many members rejoined their former organisations [Adapted from:
http://www.photius.com/countries/south_africa/government/south_africa_government_m
ass_democratic_move~2494.html].
youth pioneer programme
PART III
•
The State of Emergency and the second youth uprising – 1986.
The apartheid state used Declarations of Emergency to crack down against opponents at
times of heightened resistance. Police could detain anyone for reasons of public safety,
without any appeal to the courts. Also, meetings and gatherings could be banned. The first
State of Emergency was declared in 1960 right after the Sharpeville Massacre, when the
African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress also were declared illegal. In the
wake of the 1976 student uprising, the government widened police powers of detention
even without a State of Emergency.
By the mid-1980s, a popular uprising was underway, with militants calling for making
black communities “ungovernable”. A State of Emergency was declared in July 1985 in 36
magisterial districts. Organisations as well as meetings could be banned, and thousands
of people were detained. Also, the Commissioner of Police could impose a blanket prohibition on media coverage of the Emergency, and names of people who had been
detained could not be revealed.
On June 12, 1986, just before the 10th anniversary of the student uprising that started in
Soweto, a State of Emergency was declared throughout the country. The provisions of this
State of Emergency were broader than any previous ones, but anti-apartheid mobilization
continued. The government restricted political funerals, imposed curfews, and banned
certain indoor gatherings. Television cameras were banned from “unrest areas,” preventing international as well as national coverage of the growing organising and police repression.
•
The ANC meetings with progressive white South Africa and a move towards a
egotiated settlement: 1985 – 1989/The unbanning of all political parties and
release of Nelson Mandela in 1990/The Convention for a Democratic South
Africa (CODESA) I and II: 1991 - 1992.
The transition to democracy was outlined by the ANC National Working Commiitte
accordingly:
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5. Balance of forces
By the end of the eighties, the strategic balance of forces was characterised by:
5.1
The liberation movement enjoyed many advantages over the regime, both internally and
internationally. All the pillars of the struggle had grown from strength to strength:
•
a very high level of mass mobilisation and mass defiance had rendered apartheid
unworkable;
the building of the underground had laid a basis for exercising political
•
leadership and was laying a basis for an intensification of the armed
struggle; - the world was united against apartheid.
5.2
At the same time the liberation movement faced certain objective weaknesses:
•
changes in Southern Africa were making it increasingly difficult for the ANC in
the conduct of struggle;
•
there was no longer a visible intensification of the armed struggle;
the international community was making renewed attempts to impose a settlement plan.
.
5.3
The crisis in Eastern Europe, and the resultant change in the relations between
world powers brought the issue of a negotiated resolution of regional conflicts to the fore
- in this context, South Africa was not going to be treated as an exception. Importantly,
these changes also exerted new pressures on the regime to fall in line with the emerging
international "culture" of multi-party democracy.
5.4
The apartheid power bloc was no longer able to rule in the old way. Its policies of repression and reform had failed dismally; and it faced an ever-deepening socio- economic crisis. At the same time the liberation movement did not have the immediate capacity to
overthrow the regime.
5.5
All these factors set the stage for a negotiated resolution of the South African conflict. The
regime was forced to unban the ANC and other organisations, release Nelson Mandela
and other political prisoners, acknowledge the defeat of the apartheid ideology, and seek
negotiations with the liberation movement. This constituted a major strategic retreat for the
regime and a victory for the democratic forces.
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6. Shifts in the balance of forces:
6.1
The balance of forces is not completely static. In this phase of the negotiations:
•
The regime strives to undermine and weaken the liberation movement through its
strategy of Low Intensity War;
•
The liberation movement seeks to weaken the capacity of the regime to act against
the people and broaden the space for free political activity though a combination
of mass mobilisation, international pressure and self-defence.
6.2
In the recent period:
•
The de Klerk regime has suffered a renewed crisis of legitimacy. It continues to fail
to win the allegiance of the majority;
•
The regime's camp stands more divided than it ever was since the unbanning of
the ANC: its unpatriotic front with some bantustans has collapsed; it is
increasingly losing the loyalty of the civil service and important elements in the
security forces; in the October special session of the tri-cameral parliament, it
failed to secure the support of a single other party outside itself; leading members
of the party and government continue to jump ship for reasons of "fatigue”,”
depression" and "disillusionment";
the regime has lost all ability to arrest the unprecedented socio- economic decline,
•
growing unemployment among both black and white, the general social
disintegration and spiralling crime
However:
•
the regime still commands vast state and other military resources;
•
it continues to enjoy the support of powerful economic forces;
objectively, the counter-revolutionary violence and the growing potential of long•
term counter- revolutionary instability acts as a resource for the regime.
6.3
Also in the recent period:
the ANC has established itself as a legal national political organisation;
•
•
it commands the support of the majority of South Africa;
•
the liberation movement enjoys the capacity to mobilise large-scale mass action;
•
it is able to influence and mobilise the international community.
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However:
•
the liberation movement suffers many organisational weaknesses;
•
it does not command significant military and financial resources;
•
it is unable to militarily defeat the counter- revolutionary movement or
adequately defend the people.,
6.4
As a result of mass action and negotiations, some progress has been made in the recent
period. Some examples of these are: the CODESA Declaration of Intent (which establishes national consensus on the broad direction in which the political process should
unfold); the Record of Understanding; and broad consensus on the need for an Interim
Government and Constituent Assembly. Though the regime has succeeded in delaying the
transition there remains a groundswell of support within society as a whole for a speedy
resolution of the political and socio-economic problems.
6.5
In this context, the liberation movement is faced with various options:
A.
resumption of the armed struggle and the perspective of revolutionary seizure of
power. (given the objective situation outlined above, and the possibility of a
negotiated resolution, the ANC has decided that this option is neither preferable,
nor viable at this juncture);
B.
a protracted negotiations process, combined with mass action and international
pressure until the balance of forces is shifted to such an extent that we secure a
negotiated surrender from the regime;
C.
a swift negotiations process combined with mass action and international pressure
which takes into account the need for national unity against counter-revolutionary
forces, and at the same time, uses phases in the transition to qualitatively change
the balance of forces in order to secure thoroughgoing democratic transformation
6.6
Taking into account:
•
the capacity of the liberation movement;
the capacity of the regime to endlessly delay while consolidating its hold onto
•
power and restructuring in order to undermine future democratic transformation;
the cost to the people and the country of a protracted negotiations process;
•
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•
•
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the need to as urgently as possible address the dire socio-economic needs of the
people;
and the need to prevent a further consolidation of the counter- revolutionary
forces;
The third option, (c), is the most viable and preferable.
6.7
The liberation movement, however, should guard against being captive to a given
approach. A combination of factors, including the conduct of the regime may dictate a
need to revisit our approach.
7. Negotiations: the preferred option of the liberation movement.
7.1
A peaceful political settlement has always been the first option of the liberation movement. It was only when the prospect of any peaceful settlement vanished that we adopted the perspective of an armed revolutionary seizure of power. On the other hand, for the
regime, it was a failure of arms that imposed the obligation to concede the need for a
political settlement.
7.2
Negotiations therefore represent a victory for the democratic movement and a defeat for
the forces of apartheid.
7.3
Consequently, it must remain one of our strategic tasks to continue to draw the regime
onto the terrain of free political activity, peaceful democratic action and genuine negotiations.
7.4
Delays in the process of peaceful transformation are not in the interests of the masses, who
seek liberation now, and do not enhance our possibilities to effect the transformation to
genuine democracy as effectively and as speedily as we should.
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8. Phases of the Democratic Revolution:
8.1
Our strategic perspective should take into account that the Democratic Revolution will
proceed in various phases. Our possibilities relevant to each phase should not be pursued
in a manner that produces defeats later because of a failure to recognise the dialectical
interconnection between various phases.
8.2
This strategic perspective should recognise the following phases, each one of which has
its regularities and objective and subjective demands:
PHASE 1:
The period prior to the establishment of the Transitional Executive Council. (In this phase
we should aim to: secure an agreement on free and fair election, Interim Government and
Constituent Assembly; stop unilateral restructuring; broaden the space for free political
activity; and, address the issue of violence).
PHASE 2:
The period from the establishment of the Transitional Executive Council leading up to the
election of the Constituent Assembly and the establishment of an Interim Government of
National Unity. (In this phase we should aim to: consolidate peace through joint control
over all armed forces; ensure free and fair elections; and mobilise for a decisive victory in
the elections.)
PHASE 3:
The period of the drafting and adoption of the new constitution by the Constituent
Assembly. (In this phase we should aim to: establish an Interim Government in which the
ANC would be a major player; adopt a new democratic constitution; and, start addressing the socio-economic problems facing the country).
PHASE 4:
The period of the phasing in of the new constitution, this will include the restructuring of
the state machinery and the general dismantling of the system of apartheid.
PHASE 5:
The period of the consolidation of the process of democratic transformation and reconstruction.
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8.3
At all stages, we should consider carefully the balance of forces, how to change the balance, and therefore place ourselves in a position in which we can determine the correct
path to follow to further the process of democratic change. In this context, the broad masses should play a decisive role. The process must be mass-driven.
8.4
The balance of forces, our specific objectives and our long-term goals would at each stage
dictate the need to: enter into specific, and perhaps changing, alliances; and, make certain compromises in order to protect and advance this process.
9. Goals of the National Liberation Struggle and our immediate objectives.
9.1
The fundamental goals of the National Liberation Struggle should not be confused with
the immediate objectives we set for ourselves in each phase of the transition. At the same
time we should ensure that the immediate objectives we pursue do not have the effect of
blocking our longer-term goals.
9.2
The objectives we set, and can attain in each phase will depend on the balance of forces.
9.3
We must ensure that in entering a new phase (eg. the establishment of an Interim
Government) the balance of forces is transformed qualitatively in favour of the Democratic
Movement. Negotiations can therefore result in the possibility of bringing about a radically transformed political framework (i.e. changing the conjuncture) in which the struggle
for the achievement of the strategic perspectives of the National Democratic Revolution
will be advanced in more favourable conditions.
9.4
In setting objectives for the present round of negotiations we must bear in mind that in the
main one would not achieve at the table that which one cannot achieve on the ground.
Depending on the balance of forces, we might not gain everything we set out to achieve.
However, positions we adopt should be informed by our longer term objectives. Our correct assessment of the balance of forces, the support of the masses and good negotiating
tactics should ensure that our gains constitute a decisive leap forward.
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9.5
In setting objectives today, our strategy should not focus narrowly on only the initial establishment of democracy, but also (and perhaps more importantly), on how to nurture,
develop and consolidate that democracy. Our strategy must at once also focus on ensuring that the new democracy is not undermined.
9.6
Our broad objectives for the first two phases (as distinct from longer-term goals) should
therefore be:
9.6.1
The establishment of a democratic constitution-making process.
9.6.2
Ending the National Party's monopoly of political power.
9.6.3
Ensuring a continuing link between democracy and socio-economic empowerment.
9.6.4
Minimising the threat to stability and the democratic process.
10. The need for Government of National Unity:
10.1
The objective reality imposes a central role for the ANC and the NP in the transition. The
ANC is the custodian of the peace process - while, the NP is the party in power. Using
various forms of struggle we must ensure that the regime accepts movement forward in
the process.
10.2
This means that the balance of forces has forced onto the South African political situation
a relationship between the ANC and the NP characterised by:
in the first place conflict, in so far as the regime attempts to block the transition;
•
and,
•
secondly, constructive interaction in pursuit of agreements the regime has been
forced to enter into
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10.3
How to manage this contradiction is one of our challenges of leadership.
10.4
We have already won the demand for an Interim Government of National Unity.
10.5
However, we also need to accept the fact that even after the adoption of a new constitution, the balance of forces, and the interests of the country as a whole may still require of
us to consider the establishment of a government of National Unity - provided that the
parties that have lost the elections will not be able to paralyse the functioning of government.
11. Laying the basis to minimise the threat to stability and democracy.
11.1
The new democratic government would need to adopt a wide range of measures in order
to minimise the potential threat to the new democracy. However, some of these measures
may have to be part and parcel of a negotiated settlement.
11.2
Strategic forces we need to consider right now are the SADF, SAP, all other armed formations and the civil service in general. If the transition to democracy affects the interests of
individuals in these institutions wholly and purely negatively, then they would serve as fertile ground from which the destabilisers would recruit.
11.3
Not only do these forces have vast potential to destabilise a fledgling democracy in the
future, but as importantly, they have the potential to delay the transition for a lengthy period of time or even make serious attempts to subvert the transition.
11.4
A democratic government will need to restructure the civil service and the security forces
in order to ensure that:
•
they are professional, competent and accountable;
•
they are representative of society as a whole (including through the application of
the principle of affirmative action); - they serve the interests of democracy; and
•
the size of these institutions is determined by the objective needs of the country.
In this process it may be necessary to address the question of job security,
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retrenchment packages and a general amnesty at some stage as part of a negotiated settlement. These measures will need to apply to all armed formations and sections of civil
service. In this respect, the availability of resources and experiences of other countries
need to be taken into account.
12. Reaching the negotiated settlement:
12.1
Some elements of the final negotiated settlement would take the form of multi-lateral
(CODESA type) agreements. Other element of the settlement package would take the form
of bilateral agreement between the ANC and the NP - such agreements would bind the
two parties.
12.2
The thorny question of the powers, functions and boundaries of regions in a new South
Africa may be an issue on which we would enter into bilateral discussion with the NP and
other parties and seek to reach an understanding which the parties would pursue in the
Constituent Assembly.
12.3
The question of a Government of National Unity after the adoption of a new constitution,
and the future of members of the security forces and the civil service could be dealt with
through direct engagement with these forces, as part of a bilateral agreement or in multilateral agreements.
Ready to Govern – the ANC prepares to take over the reigns of power – 1992/The
•
Interim Constitution – 1993/The political transition in 1994.
The interim 1993 Constitution was planned for a transitional period, providing for a government of national unity and building the bridge between the past regime of apartheid
and the final Constitution.
•
22
The adoption of Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) in 1994/The
National Building Project and the role of the youth - 1994 onwards.
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The ANC notes the following in the light of the RDP:
The RDP was drawn up by the ANC-led alliance in consultation with other key mass
organisations and assisted by a wide range of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and
research organisations. This inclusive approach to developing and implementing policy involving as many organisations as possible - is unique in South Africa's political history.
The ANC - because it is a liberation movement and based on the traditions of the Freedom
Charter - is the only political organisation which can bring together such a wide range of
social movements, community-based organisations and numerous other sectors and formations. This widespread and broad-based support throughout South Africa will allow the
ANC within a Government of National Unity successfully to implement the RDP.
WHY DO WE NEED AN RDP?
Our history of colonialism and apartheid has divided our country. Some of our people
enjoy a high standard of living while many do not have even the basics such as homes,
jobs, land, medical care and education.
•
Our towns and cities are divided. Most whites live in fully developed suburbs
while most blacks live in poorly developed townships and shack settlements.
•
Our rural areas are divided. There are well developed white commercial farming
areas and impoverished Bantustans.
•
In all aspects of our society there is great inequality - in schooling, health, welfare,
transport, housing and employment. Some people have all they need while many
have nothing at all. We are one of the most unequal countries in the world.
•
Our economy has benefited a minority and very large white dominated
companies control most of it.
•
Our industries have not invested enough money in research, development and
training so they are failing to meet the needs of our own people and are unable to
survive in world markets.
•
Apartheid has made sure that whites have skills while most of our workers are not
equipped to keep up with the big changes that are taking place in the world
economy.
•
Small and medium sized businesses which are important for developing the econ
omy and creating jobs do not get enough support and struggle to survive [Adapted
from: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/policy/short.htm].
A focus on youth structures: the National Youth Commission and the Umsobomvu
•
Youth Fund - 1994 onwards.
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NOTES
The National Youth Commission (NYC) was established on 16 June 1996 as part of the
democratic Government's plan to develop a comprehensive strategy to address the challenges facing young women and men in South Africa. The Government plan also situates
youth as a critical role-player in the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP)
of the country. The NYC is a statutory body established in terms of the National Youth
Commission Act (Act 19 of 1996) as amended in 2000. The Minister in the Presidency has
political oversight of the NYC.
Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UYF) was established by government in January 2001 with the
mandate of promoting the job creation and skills development and transfer among young
South Africans between the ages of 18 and 35. To carry out its mandate, UYF makes strategic investments to create opportunities for young people to acquire skills, to access job
opportunities or to pursue meaningful self-employment opportunities.
2. Introduction to the Masupatsela Programme
•
Historical background of Masupatsela.
•
The philosophical grounding of masupatsela.
•
The nexus between masupatsela and the practice of social service professionals.
3. South African Constitution and the Legal Frameworks
•
The essence of the Constitution of South Africa, 1996 and founding provisions.
The Bill of Rights.
•
•
Constitutional imperatives and legal frameworks.
•
Masupatsela Praxis and the South African Constitution.
Recommended Readings
Biko, S.B., (1978). I write what I like. London: Bowerden Publishers.
Mandela, N.R., (1995). Long Walk to Freedom. Johannesburg: Macdonald Purnell.
Mbeki, G., (1992). The Struggle for Liberation In South Africa. Cape Town: David Philips
Publishers.
Reddy, E.S., (1990). Dr. Yusuf Mohammed Dadoo: His speeches, articles and correspondence with Mahatma Ghandi (1939 – 1983). New Delhi: Mamedia Foundation.
Tambo, O.R.., (1991). Apartheid and the International Community – Addresses to the
United Nations Committees and Conferences (Edited by E.S., Reddy). New Delhi: Sterling
Publishers Limited.
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youth pioneer programme
MASUPATSELA PRINCIPLES AND VALUES
1.
Executive Summary
The primary objective of the MASUPATSELA YOUTH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME is
to recruit, train and absorb unemployed and out of school youth of South Africa. Hence
this is essentially a creative transformation effort whose outcomes include enhancement
of skills for participation in self-employment activities and community development projects. The key strategy thus is to both train and create employment opportunities for young
people while at the same time socializing them with moral values and visions which promote activism, patriotism and social cohesion. In this sense the broader outcomes of this
programme transcend credentialism and permanent employment to cover issues of social
solidarity. Specifically, the main aim of this module is to introduce participants to the basic
philosophy, principles, values and ethics of the Masupatsela Youth programme. Requisite
Exit Level Outcomes include:
Apply and uphold the basic values and principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights
1.1
in the SA Constitution in relation to Masupatsela Youth Development praxis
Demonstration of understanding of how to utilize social policy legislation
1.2
ethically to protect and improve the quality of life
Demonstrate Masupatsela ethical values during Youth empowerment related
1.3
activities
Operationalise techniques of developing critical consciousness about processes
1.4
and structures of domination, exclusion and disempowerment and to mobilize the
Youth as agents of change to overcome this marginalization.
1.5
Appraise and implement the ethical principles and values in Youth Development
projects
1.6
Demonstrate knowledge and application of indigenous knowledge systems and
African and/or Ubuntu values during Youth self-reliance interactions
1.7
Describe and understand social justice perspectives
1.8
Analyze and identify their role as change agents
Manage their attitudes relating to the social transformation praxis
1.9
1.10 Develop their moral/ethical, compassionate and practical leadership
1.11 Understand and adopt basic ethics that will ensure ethical decision making
1.12 Understand the impact of basic values and ethical considerations on
social service delivery
1.13 Demonstrate an understanding of moral values and visions which promote
activism, patriotism and social solidarity
1.14 Demonstrate an understanding of the values and principles enshrined in the SA
constitution and the Bill of Rights
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2.
What is Masupatsela?
“The South African Masupatsela programme which is modeled on the Cuban Social Work
Programme and the Jose Marti Pioneer Programme, in the long-term, will target young
people from age seven in order to:
•
•
•
•
•
Empower young people to serve their country with the high and sustained sense
of patriotism
Empower young people to develop a deeper understanding of the South African
society and their role as change agents
Engender a deep sense of consciousness amongst young people as a basis of
human solidarity and development
Expose and empower the youth to promote Social Justice
Promote active and responsible citizenship amongst the youth”(p.18)
“Key pillars of the programme include:
•
YOUTH PIONEERING: mobilize all youth ( in or out of schools) to pioneer the
development of the country; and
•
SOCIAL ACTIVISM: engaging youth to develop a culture of social activism, social
consciousness and patriotism” ( p.18)
(Source: Summary Proposal-Launch of Masupatsela Youth Pioneer Programme and
Celebrating Youth Month:-Building bridges between and amongst the youth of Cuba and
South Africa-towards a better quality of life for all!!, 18/8/2008).
3.
Objectives of Masupatsela
The Masupatsela Youth Pioneer Programme is a youth leadership, empowerment and
activism programme. The programme will facilitate for and encourage young people to
become pioneers and activists for social change. In the medium term Masupatsela seeks
to:
•
•
•
Empower young people to serve their country with the high and sustained sense
of patriotism
Create a cadre of community activists, value-based leaders and facilitators for
social change
Empower young people to develop a deeper understanding of the concept of
‘Democracy’ and Social Transformation within the South African context
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•
•
Build the personal capacity and life-skills of the youth to achieve self-reliance
Develop the knowledge and confidence of the youth to become active and
responsible citizens capable of representing their communities at local, national
and international levels
•
Empower the youth to ‘see’ and ‘seek’ opportunities for sustainable
socio-economic and political development (p.18).
(Source: Summary Proposal-Launch of Masupatsela Youth Pioneer Programme and
Celebrating Youth Month:-Building bridges between and amongst the youth of Cuba and
South Africa-towards a better quality of life for all!!, 18/8/2008)
4.
Definition of concepts
4.1
Ethics
‘Guidelines which have traditionally formed the basis of collective group censure as well
as outlining collective commitment to values, norms and moral behaviour that encompasses individual and group good’(Pease & Fook, 1999, p.66)
4.2
Values
The moral standards which form the basis of (value) distinction between right and wrong,
acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. These commonly held or shared core values
which are expected to guide Masupatsela pioneer programme practice, entail commitment to inter alia human dignity, equality, self-determination, right to respect, privacy and
confidentiality, social justice, participation and non-discrimination.
4.3
Principles
The main beliefs, ideological and ethical or value orientation which guide Masupatsela
praxis including, among others, community development and/or empowerment, social
transformation, respect for human rights and orientation towards social solidarity, patriotism and nation-building.
5.
5.1
5.1.1
5.1.2
5.1.3
5.1.4
youth pioneer programme
Ethics and Values guiding the Masupatsela Programme
Basic values enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
Equality
Human Rights and Dignity
Right to Life
Freedom and Security of the person(see excerpts below for all aspects of 5 above)
Excerpts from the Constitution of South Africa, 1996:
‘1. The Republic of South Africa is one, sovereign, democratic state founded on the following values:
(a)
Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights
and freedoms
(b)
Non-racialism and non-sexism’
‘3. (2) All citizens are(a)
Equally entitled to the rights, privileges and benefits of citizenship’
‘7. (1) This Bill of Rights is a cornerstone of democracy in South Africa. It enshrines
the rights of all people in our country and affirms the democratic values of human
dignity, equality and freedom
(2) The state must respect, protect, promote and fulfill the rights in the Bills of Rights;
(1) Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and
‘9.
benefit of the law;
(2) Equality includes the full and equal enjoyment of all rights and freedoms;
(3) The state may not unfairly discriminate against anyone on…grounds,
including race, gender, ethnic or social origin, disability…;
10.
Everyone has inherent dignity and the right to have their dignity respected and
protected;
11.
Everyone has the right to life;
12. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom and security of the person…’
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6.
Ubuntu Principles
According to Broodryk (2002), ‘Ubuntu is…the value base of the constitution of the
Republic of South Africa…the basis of several national youth development programmes
and strategies’. The following are some definitions of the concept:
•
•
•
•
•
‘“Every facet of African life to embrace Ubuntu as a process and philosophy which
reflects the African heritage, traditions, culture, customs, beliefs, value systems
and the extended family structures”(Makhudu, 1993:40)’(p.24)
‘…a non-racial philosophy or value system through which all people are regarded
and treated as human beings…the art of being human’(p.25)
‘…a philosophy of tolerance and compassion’ (p.25)
‘…a philosophical concept that accepts that mankind is one integrated whole
comprising of varied racial groups’ (p.25)
‘…the quality and dignity of the human personality’ (p.25)
“Ubuntu can therefore be defined as a comprehensive ancient African world view based
on the values of intense humanness, caring, sharing, respect, compassion and associated
values, ensuring a happy and qualitative human community life in a spirit of family”(p.26)
youth pioneer programme
CORE AND ASSOCIATED UBUNTU VALUES
Core Values
Associated Values
Humanness
Warmth, tolerance, understanding, peace, humanity
Caring
Empathy, sympathy, helpfulness, charitable, friendliness
Sharing
Giving(unconditionally), redistribution, openhandedness
Respect
Commitment, dignity, obedience, order, normative
Compassion
Love, cohesion, informality, forgiving, spontaneity
Source: Broodryk, 2002: 32
7.
Batho Pele Principles
The eight Principles of Batho Pele are:
•
Consultation
Citizens should be consulted about the level and quality of the public services
they receive and, wherever possible, should be given a choice about the services
that are offered
•
Service standards
Citizens should be told what level and quality of public services they will receive so that
they are aware of what to expect
Access
•
All citizens should have equal access to the services to which they are entitled
•
Courtesy
Citizens should be treated with courtesy and consideration
•
Information
Citizens should be given full, accurate information about the public services they are entitled to receive
Openness and transparency
•
Citizens should be told how national and provincial departments are run, how much they
cost, and who is in charge
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•
Redress
•
Value for money
•
Public services should be provided economically and efficiently in order to give
citizens the best possible value for money.
(Source: Batho Pele-‘People First’, White Paper on Transforming Public Service Delivery,
Department of Public Service and Administration, 18 September 1997).
8. Social Development Services
ETHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT SERVICES AREA
The broad ethical principles and their corresponding values which follow below have
been adapted from ‘Social Work’s core values of service, social justice, dignity and worth
of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence. From these
principles ideals can be abstracted or derived which should give direction to the praxis of
Masupatsela youth pioneers.
VALUE
ETHICAL PRINCIPLE
Service
To help people in need and to address social problems
Social Justice
Masupatsela youth pioneers to challenge social injustice
Dignity and Worth of a Person
To respect the inherent dignity and worth of the person
Importance of Human Relationships To recognize the central importance of human
relationships
Youth pioneers to behave in a trustworthy manner
Integrity
Competence
Youth pioneers to strive to develop and increase their
practical experience and knowledge of social
transformation and development processes
(Source: Adapted from Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers,
Revised by the 2008 NASW Delegate Assembly, Washington DC)
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Additionally, the following principles can also embraced by foot soldiers:
(a)
Principle of Confidentiality
During service delivery, cadres will be dealing with various kinds of problems and may
have to conduct interviews. Cadres have to adhere to confidentiality. There are two kinds
of confidentiality and they are as follows:
Absolute Confidentiality:
This means whatever that was divulged to you have to keep it as a secret, unless you get
permission from that particular individual to share that information.
Relative Confidentiality
Here you can share the information with other relevant people, be it other cadres, community workers and any other professionals who may be of assistance to the problem.
(b)
Self- determination
The people and communities that we serve need to be empowered with skills that they
will have to use when the cadres are not there. The persons/s that you deal with have to
be given an option/s and have to provided with rights to make choices on the kind of
action that they feel they need to take in the problem- solving situations.
(c)
Individualization
People should be treated as individuals and their problems be treated with uniqueness that
they deserve. This may mean that we need not to be familiar with people’s problems and
use blanket solutions but have to be empathic and humane.
(d)
Acceptance
This principle emphasize that we need to accept people as they are. When we deal with
people we are not suppose to use discriminatory practices based on gender, culture, political affiliation, religion, race and others. We are agents of positive change and have to play
supportive roles to our communities.
(e)
Worth, warmth and dignity
Everybody that we will be dealing with have to be treated with dignity, humanely, warmth
and worthiness. Even if a person is impoverished or dying, one has to be always be
emphatic and preserve the worth and dignity of that people.
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(f)
Non –judgmental attitude
Cadres are not supposed to judge people. When we are confronted with situations we
need to avoid, self-blame and name- calling. We also need to adhere to human rights
issues and play significant roles to enable our communities to realize their goals.
9.
National Youth Service
“The Masupatsela Youth Pioneer Programme, consequently, in short-term seeks to contribute to the National Youth Service Programme (NYSP) by:
Contributing to the enhancement of the youth development through participation
•
in service activities that offer learning and occupational competencies for young
people especially those that are unemployed
•
Encouraging young people to serve their communities and to develop a culture of
patriotism and nation building, and
•
Supporting young people to enable participants to access further learning and/or
economic advancement opportunities upon completion of the service
programme”.
(Source: Summary Proposal-Launch of Masupatsela Youth Pioneer Programme and
Celebrating Youth Month:-Building bridges between and amongst the youth of Cuba and
South Africa-towards a better quality of life for all 18/8/2008).
10.
Sound Ethical base
Ethical considerations in the MASUPATSELA require more than ‘the right ethical attitude’
as it often needs ‘action in which ethically sound attitudes are clearly manifest’. For
instance in a system of values opposed to discrimination, honesty and courage will be
needed to confront all involved about their actions or attitudes causing and exacerbating
the client’s discomfort.
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All cadres had to adhere to the above-mentioned values and principles and are expected
to:
•
To respect the professionals and communities that they will be working with
•
To respect one another as foot soldiers
•
To be committed to the cause of alleviating poverty and problems within the
country
•
To adhere to the Masupatsela Youth and Pioneer Program and be committed to
social upliftment as set by the government.
EXERCISES
As a cadre what is your commitment to your people and community?
1.
(a)
Write your short term goals and long term goals,
(b)
Prioritize your goals in line with your commitment
(c)
Check those that you can quickly realize within a short term period
(d)
Check those that will take you a long time to obtain
(e)
Now. What is your ethical obligation as a pioneer to realize these various goals,
prioritize.
What is your understanding of values?
2.
2.1
Mention the difference between professional values and personal values?
What values do you hold as a person concerning this program?
2.2
2.3
How do these values support the program?
2.4
How do they contrast?
2.5
How will you avoid biases and prejudices?
2.6
How will you maintain objectivity?
3.
At times you may find yourself having to take decisions based on divided
loyalties. What is your understanding of divided loyalties?
In addition it is a fundamental ethical obligation that those who intervene to resolve the
matter have knowledge and experience. For it is highly unethical to involve inexperienced
novices in crisis intervention. Lastly appropriate use of power and control has to be
ensured so that the rights of clients are not violated and adequate resources have to be
provided (sexual abuse child has to be provided with alternative care before removal from
home) (Hanvey & Philpot, 1994:141-2).
4.
Dealing with young persons who have problems, how would you deal with the
issues, Now look at the principle and choose those that applicable to this
scenario and indicate how you will Apply them.
5.
Focusing on the above example what could be the ethical dilemma that you
would encounter, choose those that are applicable and discuss.
10.1
6.
HIV/AIDS pandemic is rife within our communities, how would you deal with
Ethical Expectations of the Masupatsela
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issues
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7.
8.
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of:
Absolute confidentiality
Relative confidentiality
Acceptance
Individualization
Worth, warmth and dignity
Non-judgmental attitude
Self-determination.
How would you respect the client’s rights to self-determination in a case of
domestic violence within your community?
Imagine that you are confronted with a client who has a problem of alcohol
abuse;
How would you encourage the person to attend Alcohol Anonymous meetings
that has been initiated by the cadres bearing in mind issues of standards of
practice like
Acceptance
Self-determination
Privacy
Confidentiality
Deception
And whistle- blowing.
What is your understanding of the principle of Bathopelo;
Indicate how practically you can provide Ubuntu Principle in your service
delivery working with diverse population?
Indicate how you will play the role of an enabler
Role of an adviser
Facilitator
And advocacy.
Practical issues
1.
36
As a pioneer, the other members decide to go on strike for better working
conditions. Would you cross the picket line and go to work?
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2.
3.
Based on the above example what ethical dilemmas will you be confronted with?
What ethics concepts and standards of practice would you use to support your
action and opinion?
4.
Check the kind of human rights issues that you are likely to be confronted with in
field work practice based on the Bill of Rights as enshrined in the South African
Constitution.
5.
How would you confront or deal with a colleague who engages in ethical
misconduct behaviors:
provide several scenario,
How would you respond
Are you satisfied with the way you responded
Would you have responded differently if it were to happen today based on
Masupatsela values, ethics and principles?
•
•
•
•
It makes you think doesn’t it?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Broodryk J. 2002. UBUNTU: Life Lessons from Africa. Pretoria: Ubuntu School of
Philosophy.
Day, P R. 1987. Sociology in Social Work Practice. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Hanvey, C., & Philpot, T. 1994. Practising Social Work. London: Routledge.
Jordan, B. 1990. Social Work in an Unjust Society. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf:.
Payne, M. 2005. The Origins of Social Work: Continuity and Change. New York: Palgrave
MacMillan.
Pease, B. & J Fook, J. 1999. Transforming Social Work Practice. London: Routledge.
Reamer, F.G. 2006. Social Work Values and Ethics. New York: CUP.
Vass, A.A. 1996. Social Work Competences. London: Sage Publications.
Batho Pele-‘People First’, White Paper on Transforming Public Service Delivery,
Department of Public Service and Administration, 18 September 1997
Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996
Green Paper on National Youth Service, National Youth Commission in the Office of the
Deputy President, October 1998.
Summary Proposal-Launch of Masupatsela Youth Pioneer Programme and Celebrating
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NOTES
Youth Month:-Building bridges between and amongst the youth of Cuba and South Africatowards a better quality of life for all. 18/8/2008.
Source: Adapted from Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers,
Revised by the 2008 NASW Delegate Assembly, Washington DC.
Notes
1.Under ethics and values include issues of client, citizen and group participation; code
of ethics to include role of advocacy on behalf clients; participation and advocacy; sensitivity to racial, ethnic, gender, disability, cultural and other differences; self-determination
replaced by participation (Payne, 2005: 152-3)
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COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS MODULE
NOTES
Definitions
Communication is the basis for all human interactions and functioning. The challenge in
defining communication is that there are many definitions of the concept communication
and little agreement about which definition is most useful. Despite the challenges in defining communication, there are ways in which to view the process of transmitting information that are helpful in discussing interpersonal communication skills. Communication
can be defined broadly as any verbal or non verbal behavior that is perceived by another
person (Johnson and Johnson1975). Communication in other words is much more than
just exchange of words; all behavior conveys some message and is therefore some form
of communication. Interpersonal communication, however is more commonly defined as
a message sent by one person to a receiver/s with a conscious intention of affecting the
receivers’ behavior, a person send a message ”How are you ?” to evoke a response “Fine”.
Under this limited definition, any signal aimed at influencing the receiver behavior in any
way is a communication Ross.
Communication is the interchange of messages between two or more persons. These messages can be verbal, non verbal, behavioral interaction and bodily gestures. Facial gestures and tones of voice can be very powerful in communicating messages. Non verbal
communication like bodily and facial gestures and tones of voice may either qualify
(when they are congruent) or disqualify (when they are incongruent) the verbal message.
How do you tell if communication is working effectively and when it is not? What is effective communication? Effective communication exists between two people when the
receiver interprets the sender’s message in the same way the sender intended it. The message is any verbal or nonverbal symbol that one person transmits to another. A message
refers to information about a subject matter being referred to in a symbolic way (all words
are symbols) A channel can be defined as a means of sending a message to another person: the sound waves of the voice, the light waves involved in seeing words on a printed
page. Because communication is a process, sending and receiving messages often occurs
simultaneously; a person can be speaking and at the same time be paying close attention
to the receiver’s nonverbal responses.
Communication Styles
It is important to note that one cannot “not” communicate. There are as many styles of
communication as there are communicators. If human communication took place at only
one level, understanding and defining relationships would be very easy, a simple matter
of the presence or absence of messages. Unfortunately this is not the case.
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Stress often results from communication styles that people have developed and practiced
over many years in order to avoid dealing with feelings. Some of the most destructive of
these stress producing styles, which should be avoided are described. Most of these would
be applicable to married partners and can occasionally be applicable to other relationships.
Miscommunication Styles
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The avoider: refuses to fight when conflict arises, he will leave, fall asleep, pretend
to be busy at work at work, or keep from facing the problem in some other way.
This behavior makes it very difficult for another to express his feelings of anger,
hurt, etc. because the avoider won’t fight back.
•
The guilt maker: instead of saying straight out that he does not want or approve of
something, the guilt maker tries to change his partner’s behavior by making him
feel responsible for causing pain. The guilt maker’s favorite line is “it is Ok, don’t
worry about me…”
•
The subject changer: really a type of avoider, the subject changer escapes facing
up to aggression by shifting the conversation whenever it approaches an area of
conflict. Because of his tactics, the subject changer and his partner never have the
chance to explore their problem and to do something about it.
The Mind Reader: instead of allowing another to honestly express feelings, the
•
mind reader goes into character analysis, explaining what the other person really
means or what is wrong with the other person. By behaving this way the mind
reader refuses to handle his own feelings and leaves room for the other person to
express himself.
•
The withholder: instead of expressing his anger honestly and directly, the with
holder punishes his partner by keeping back something – courtesy, affection, good
cooking, humor, and sex. As you can imagine, this is likely to build up even
greater resentment in the relationship.
The trapper: an example of this technique is when the trapper says “Let’s be
•
totally honest with each other” and then when partner shares his feelings he finds
himself attacked for having feelings that the trapper doesn’t want to accept.
•
The Beltliner: beltlines have to do with physical characteristics, intelligence, past
behavior or deeply ingrained personality traits a person is trying to overcome. In
an attempt to “get even” or hurt his partner the beltliner will use his intimate
knowledge to hit below the belt, where he knows it will hurt (Dougan, Dembo,
Lenahan, Makapela, Gama, Moutinho, 1986).
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Verbal Communication
Verbal communication refers to communication by means of a spoken word/ spoken language. Differences in language usage and communication style affect both verbal and non
verbal communication (Barker, 1999).
The same word can have different connotations in different cultures. For example, among
white South Africans, the word “mother” or “mummy” usually refers to a specific person
or parent, while among Black persons it refers to an older woman. Idioms and metaphors
maybe misinterpreted in cross cultural verbal interactions. There are also different cultural rules regarding greetings, and which conversational topics are acceptable and which
are taboo. For example, it is regarded as polite to enquire about the wellbeing of a man’s
spouse and other female members of the family, while in Saudi Arabian cultures it is inappropriate. In western cultures, it is regarded as a sign of respect to refer to a person in
authority or occupying a higher status by his or her title and surname. However in South
African Black cultures, using a person’s surname rather than first name represents an
attempt to establish a warm, friendly relationship. Persons from the Western and European
cultures tend to be very direct when asked about their preferences, saying “yes” or “no”
directly. On the other hand, Asians do not usually say “no” directly. Also within some
Black South African cultures, elderly males usually tend to avoid giving direct answers. In
such situations, the counselor may need to use a circumlocutory technique in order to
elicit a concrete answer. Communicating verbally requires one to be sensitive to cultural and language dynamics (Ross and Deverell, 2004).
Paralanguage
Paralanguage refers to all the things that can be done with speech and voice to communicate meaning, such as silence or pauses, loudness, and inflection or vocal stress.
Silence
Generally silence denotes interest and respect but also indicate negative emotional reactions, as shown by the phrase: “giving someone the silent treatment”. North Americans
tend to feel uncomfortable with silent stretches in conversation, as they are assumed to
show tension or reluctance to respond. To Asians, silence shows respect for elders and is
sign of politeness. For example, Asian people the proverb, “Keep your mouth shut and
your eyes open “ .In certain Black African cultures, if you reveal something to someone
and they remain silent, they may be perceived as being judgmental.
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Loudness
Speaking volume is a cultural phenomenon for example; Asians tend to speak more softly while Middle Eastern and African cultures like to be “bathed in sound”, preferring louder volumes in both speaking and music. For example, it reported on South African television as well as in the Citizen (8th February 2002) that British audiences had complained
that an African musical production was “too loud”. In Western cultures, raising one’s voice
to someone often implies that one is angry; however, in many African cultures it can be
sign of seriousness. In cross-cultural encounters, low speaking volumes on the part of certain persons may be misinterpreted as a sign of weakness or shyness.
Inflection/ vocal stress
Subtle changes in stress often reveal the emotional state of the speaker. The use of intonation and interjections is also culturally determined and expresses different meanings within different cultures. An individual’s accent, the stress placed on words, sighs, grunts and
pitch used may be based on cultural norms. A problem with interpreters is that they may
not include these subtle changes.
Time orientation
Western cultures tend to be future oriented, with the focus on youth as the hope for a better future. Consequently, youth is valued while old age is devalued. In contrast, eastern
cultures value the past and tend to focus on ancestors and the wisdom of the elderly.
Cultural differences in time orientation are also shown in relation to therapy appointments. We talk “African time” to refer to the notion that strict punctuality is not important.
Cultural values also influence the time taken to begin discussing a particular issue. For
example, in Western Cultures the counselor usually goes directly to the problem, while in
Eastern and African cultures such an approach is considered rude and impolite. Such cultures prefer a warm up period during which one can, for example, ask about the well
being of various family members. Some cultures prefer a slower paced interview, which
could inadvertently lead premature “turn-taking” on the part of the therapist. It is also
important to bear in mind that other non cultural factors could be responsible for persons
arriving late for appointment. For example in South Africa, persons accustomed to attending under resourced public sector hospitals and clinics often come expect that they will
have to wait for hours before they will be seen and the learn to adapt to these conditions
(Ross and Deverell 2004)..
Non verbal Communication
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Non verbal communication is communication that is transmitted by means other than
words and conveys feelings emotions and the intensity of emotions. It may therefore be
difficult to recognize unspoken codes that are utilized so automatically in a given culture
that may not even be consciously recognized by members of that culture. According to
Boucher (1979) such codes communicate definite attitudes that may emphasize, harden,
soften or contradict the spoken message. Non verbal communication includes proxemics,
kinesics, paralanguage and cronemics or time orientation
Proxemics
Proxemics refers to the use and perception of an individual’s personal space. Within the
concept of proxemics there are metalinguistics factors, such as conversational distance
and intrusion distance. Conversational distance is the amount of space separating two
people who are talking. Intrusion distance is the distance that one should maintain from
two people who are already talking in order to get attention and to avoid intrusion.
According to Lago and Thompson (1996) there are norms related to olfactory space and
visual space. Acceptable distances for various types of behaviors vary in different cultures.
For example people from the Middle East tend to stand closer and touch their conversational partners more often than persons from Western countries. In this context, a counselor who backs away form a client may be perceived as cold and aloof. Deaf people tend
to stand closer to facilitate lip reading and make greater use of touch. Proxemics has
implications for the arrangement of office furniture, where seats are located and the counselor seats the client.
Related to proxemics is the aspect of entering a doorway. For example, in certain African
cultures men enter before women in order to protect them from unexpected dangers. Also
in western cultures, younger persons are expected to stand up to greet an older person or
female, whereas in Black South African cultures, it is more appropriate to sit down when
greeting someone.
Kinesics
Kinesics refers to the meaning of body movements and includes facial expression, smiling, head movement, use of hands and eye contact. Counselors often rely on kinetic cues
for information regarding their client’s emotive states.
•
Facial expression indicates ones degree of responsiveness to and involvement in
counseling. For example in Japanese and Chinese cultures value is placed on
control of emotional expression. This demeanour is often misinterpreted by
Eurocentric individuals as flat and enigmatic.
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Smiling in Western cultures smiling indicates liking or positive affect. In Japanese
cultures, a smile is usually a sign of embarrassment, discomfort and shyness.
Outward expressions such as smiling are discouraged and may be misinterpreted
as a lack of feeling.
Head positioning and head nodding: Lifting the chin when conversing is
considered to be poised and polite to the Englishmen. In North America it is
considered as a sign of arrogance or snobbery. For North Americans, shaking the
head from side to side indicates “no” or disagreement while nodding the head
indicates “yes” or agreement. Asians use repeated head nodding during
conversation to indicate deference to authority rather than agreement.
Shaking hands and hand movement: Within certain religious groups men may
shake hands with each other but not with women. In America a raised thumb is
seen as sign of approval, while in Greece this same sing is regarded as an insult
Eye contact and eye gaze: In most African cultures, direct eye contact with an
elder or person in authority is considered disrespectful. Counselors from the
Western cultures are taught to use eye contact to convey interest and concern and
when a client averts his or her gaze or looks away this action may be
misinterpreted as a sign of lack of interest. Within certain cultures eye contact
between a man and a woman is believed to have sexual connotations (Ross and
Deverell 2004).
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The Interpersonal Communication Process.
•
All communication involves the sender who initiates the message. A sender is the
source or origin of communication. Communication must start somewhere
communication originates with the sender (Swanepoel and De Beer 2006:75).
•
All communication involves the message _ the content and form of
communication
•
All communication involves the receiver _ the intended recipient of the message,
or the target. Communication is always directed at someone or at a group of
people.
•
The intentions, ideas, feelings of the sender and the way he decides to behave, all
of which lead to his/her sending a message that carries some content.
•
The sender encoding his/her message by translating his ideas, feelings and
intentions into a message appropriate for sending.
•
Sending the message to the receiver
•
The channel through which the message is translated. A channel can be directly
talking to someone “eyeball to eyeball”, or I can write the person a letter, or I can
send the person a message via someone else, or I can send an e-mail message or
an sms to a person (Swanepoel and De Beer 2006:75).
•
The receiver decoding the message by taking it and interpreting its meaning. His
interpretation depends on how well the receiver understands the content of the
message and the intentions of the sender
•
The receiver responding internally to this interpretation of the message
•
The amount of noise in the above steps. Noise is any element that interferes with
the communication process. In the sender, noise refers to such things as the
attitudes, prejudices, frame of reference of the sender, and the appropriateness of
his language or other expression of the message. In the receiver, noise refers to
such things as his attitudes, background, and experiences that affect the decoding
process. In the channel, noise refers to environmental sounds, like traffic, speech
problems such as stammering, annoying or distracting mannerism such as a
tendency to mumble. To a large extent, the success of communication is
determined by the degree to which noise is overcome or controlled (Ross and
Deverell 2004).
.
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Communication Barriers
In summary Lago and Thompson (1996:40) mention the following common barriers to
communication: physical appearance; height and weight; non-verbal behavior; language;
time; context and purpose of meeting; attitudes towards others; location of meeting; customs and rituals; smell; age; touch and disability; decoration; adornment and jewelry; personal institutional power; expectations of the other; perceptions of the other; perception
of the other and previous personal history; fear of the other; gender; notions of acceptable
and unacceptable behavior; system of ethics and morals; status ; authority; belief system
and religion; interpersonal projections and political differences; personal theories of communication; class and race.
Swanepoel and De Beer (2006:75) allude to the following communication
barriers:
•
The receiver may have anxieties and may be scared of the sender or the message.
In such a situation, the receiver does not really listen to the message and therefore
does not really receive it.
•
The receiver may have expectations. The receiver may think that the
communication will lead to further good things and then pre-empt the message.
S/he does not listen properly and misses out some detail of the message.
•
The receiver may be pre-occupied. If for example you read a book but your mind
is really with the soccer match that will take place later today, you will not know
what you are reading. Few people can really concentrate on more than one thing
at a time.
•
The receiver may have a physical disability. S/he may be feeling sick. A severe
headache makes concentration very difficult, such that a message cannot be
decoded properly.
•
There may be environmental disturbances. Circumstances such as noise or
competing messages.
•
The receiver may not understand the language used.
The receiver may not understand the jargon used. Jargon or official terminology
•
permeates all languages more and more.
•
The receiver may be anxious or preoccupied
•
Communication may be too lengthy.
The values and mores of the sender and receiver may be in conflict.
•
•
There may be a status clash or a marked status difference between the receiver and
the sender.
•
The way the sender communicates may make the message unacceptable.
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How can you communicate effectively?
Listening as a skill can promote communication. It assists a person to be sure he/she
understands the meaning of what another person is saying or doing. When you paraphrase
you state in your own words what the other persons’ remark means to you. This allows
that person to decide whether or not he thinks you understand what he means. The technique of paraphrasing can be used to test and express understanding of what is said. If you
show that you really do understand the other person’s point of view, he probably will be
more willing to try and understand your views as well. Paraphrasing may be based on:
•
Making a general statement specific for yourself
•
Giving and example of what you think the other person means
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Clarifying their statements in your own words.
You can communicate effectively when you:
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Use direct, clear and simple language
•
Bring things out to the open
•
Are aware of the context of communication
•
Consider the other person’s point of view
•
Are honest, avoid lie to the other person
•
Sincere and mean what you are saying
•
Sensitive to the other person’s background and adapt to it
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Use language that correspond with your body language
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Don’t use racist or sexist terms
Sensitive to the other person’s body language
•
•
Avoid politics and religion there are too many tricky nuances that can get you
into trouble.
•
Communicate in good faith at all times
Concentrate on common grounds and aims and avoid differences.
•
•
Admit your mistakes
•
Communicate with confidence
•
Never gossip, the receiver will have anxiety that you might gossip about him/her
too (Swanepoel and De Beer 2006:77-85).
Express yourself openly, freely and spontaneously directly
•
•
Can be flexible and without fear
•
Listen effectively
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Give feedback
Can negotiate
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Effective communication:
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encourages and facilitates continuous growth and development of the relationship
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promotes self disclosure and self awareness
•
enables you to make your own needs known- thus preventing unnecessary
frustration.( Dougan et al, 1986)
Communication Behavior exercise 1.
What is your communication behavior like in a group?
How would you describe your communication actions?
Begin a discussion of communication within groups by answering the following questions as honestly as possible:
1.If I as a group leader were giving a set of instructions and the other group members sat
quietly with blank faces, I would:
•
State the instructions clearly and precisely and then move on.
•
Encourage members to ask questions until I was sure that everyone understood
what they were supposed to do.
2.
If the group leader gave a set of instructions to the group that I did not understand,
I would:
Keep silent and later ask another group members what she meant
•
Immediately ask the leader to repeat the instructions and answer my questions
•
until I was sure I understood what she wanted me to do.
3. How often would you let other group members know when you liked or approved of
something they said or did?
4. How often would you let other group members know when you felt irritated, impatient,
embarrassed by, or disagree with, something they said or did?
5. How often do you check out what other group members are feeling and how they are
reacting rather than assuming that you know?
6. How often do you encourage other group members to let you know how they are reacting to your behavior and action in the group?
7. How often do you check to make you understand what other group members mean
before agreeing or disagreeing?
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8. How often do you paraphrase or restate what other members have said before
responding?
9. How often do keep your thoughts, ideas, feelings, and reactions to yourself in group
sessions?
10. How often do you make sure that information you have about the current topic of discussion is known to the rest of the group?
Communication Behavior Exercise 2
Discuss how participants currently communicate, verbally and non- verbally.
Discuss examples in terms of congruency and incongruence between verbal and non
verbal communication by using for example, angry words, tone, and facial expression.
Participants should either qualify or disqualify their verbal message through non verbal
communication.
How would you react when your mother says: “where have you been, you are late again.
I have had enough of this?” Answer should include the following:
•
Taking responsibility for feelings by accepting the fact that she is angry?
•
Communicate feelings honestly, indicating awareness of her anger, and the fact
that you are sorry
•
Remember suppressing feelings can create internal distress
•
Respond to feelings as well as words (Dougan, et al)
Communication Behavior Exercise 3.
Role play by two participants of a communication situation where the sender, the message
and the receiver can be clearly identified.
Discussion
Were the sender’s verbal and non verbal messages congruent?
Did the sender make it clear who the recipient was?
How did you know that the recipient understood the message?
How do you usually communicate with your parents/ partner/boss/son/employee?
References
Barker, R. (1999) The Social Work Dictionary. NASW Press, DC.
Boucher, J. D. (1979). Culture and Emotion. Perspectives on cross-cultural psychology.
Academic Press. New York.
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Dougan, B. Dembo, R. Lenahan, K. Makapela, R. Gama, J. Moutinho, D. (1986) Life skills
for Self-Development. National Council for Mental Health,
Johnson, D.W. and Johnson, (1975) Joining Together: Group Theory and Group Skills.
Prentice Hall. New Jersey.
Lago, C. and Thomposon, J. (1996) Race Culture and Counseling. Buckingham: Open
University Press.
Ross, E and Deverell, A. (2004) Psychosocial Approaches to Health Illness and Disability.
Van Schaik Publishers. Hatfield Pretoria.
Swanepoel, H. and De Beer, F. (2006). Community Development: Breaking the cycle of
poverty. Juta Publishers:Lansdowne, South Africa.
The Citizen (8th February 2002).
WORKING WITH COMMUNITIES
Definition of community work and the rationale for this approach in South Africa.
A community is defined and best described by the following elements: people, within a
geographically bounded area who are involved in social interaction and with one or more
psychological ties with each other and with the place they live. Community work can be
understood as the body of knowledge and skills concerning the achievement of a progressively better adjustment between people’s social welfare needs and resources to meet
those needs. A need is something that is lacking and a resource is something that is necessary to meet and need, for example people, money, knowledge, time, equipment,
authorization and sanction. Community work focuses on the environment and the bringing about of change in this sphere. In other words, it can be stated that while the other
direct methods of social intervention are focused on the individual, including the significant others, community work seeks changes in the environment of people. Its fundamental aim is to solve social problems by changing mending circumstances around people. In
South Africa we have huge imbalances between needs and resources; hence community
work is regarded as particularly important at this juncture in our history (McKendrick
(1987).
Traditional health care services usually focus on individual persons and family members
and occasionally on small groups, and therefore only have the potential reaching relatively small numbers of people. On the other hand, community work can potentially reach
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larger numbers of people and usually at less cost. Community work can also bring to communities services that might otherwise be geographically and economically inaccessible.
Therefore, by taking services to member of the community and sharing one’s knowledge
with them, one can empower communities, encourages community members to be come
independent, help themselves and take responsibility for improving the quality of their
lives. Community work is particularly relevant in South Africa where there are insufficient
resources to create and maintain posts for health care professionals, and fewer people are
expected to do more of the world (Ross and Deverell, 2005).
Community work roles.
These roles include:
•
To identify and assess disorders
•
To provide treatment or therapy
•
To furnish information and guidance to patients, families, teachers, nurses and
other members of the community
•
To work towards establishing service where none exist
•
To educate the community in primary health care aspects of the work, with
particular reference to the prevention disorders.
•
Because of their greater knowledge and broader view, community workers must
give advice to communities.
•
Sometimes it is necessary for community workers to advocate for the people’s
wishes, interests, actions and needs.
Enabler: community workers should enable people to fulfill their human needs, to
•
enhance their learning process and to help them gain meaningful empowerment.
Community workers should enable people to do what must be done, they must
create the climate for the people to act, space for people to move forward.
Community worker’s views and perspectives are much broader and longer term
•
than those of the people they work with. They usually have a better idea what the
consequences of any action might be. They are also more aware of pitfalls and
obstacles than are the people. It is therefore their task to guide the people through
those pitfalls towards objectives that may be somewhat not clear to the people. As
they do this, they must be cognizant of their own limitations. Community workers
do not know everything. They are also a part of the learning process. They do not
have answers to all the problems.
•
Facilitator: community workers must help people to make rational decisions,
enable them to participate fully, assist them to take initiative, help them discover
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resources, plan and implement decisions ( Ross and Deverell 2005; Swanepoel
and De Beer, 2006)
•
The attitude of a community worker:
The following are, according to Swanepoel and De Beer (2006), a number of important
guidelines addressed to the community worker regarding his/her attitude:
•
Don’t regard yourself as a superhuman that will save the people, you are not
superhuman and it is not your job to save people.
•
Have respect for the knowledge and wisdom of the people. The fact that some of
them are illiterate and most of them are not well educated does not mean that they
are stupid.
•
Respect the people’s views and feelings. These things are dear to them; disrespect
will solicit the wrong reaction.
•
Have and show compassion for people who are suffering in poverty. Aloofness
never goes down well, but compassion generates a willingness to accept you and
to work with you. In other words, it is very difficult to react negatively to
compassion.
•
Guard against paternalism. The people are not children awaiting your kind,
benevolent, but strict leadership.
Regard yourself as the people’s servant and supporter.
•
•
Be humble. Poor people are usually very humble and you should not stand out
while you are among them. Your humility will also give credence to their
leadership because your position will not be a threat to them.
•
Align yourself with the people’s success. They are seldom so successful in a
spectacular kind of way and they therefore get so little credit for anything, that you
can acknowledge accomplishment, even if they are small. In this way you can
build their dignity.
It takes a certain type of person to be a successful community worker. Hopefully the right
people will fill most of the community development worker positions in our communities.
Definition and features of primary health care.
Note the various emphases in these definitions of primary health care:
•
“Primary health care is essential health care made universally accessible to
individuals and families in the community by means acceptable to them, through
their full participation and at a cost the community and country can afford”
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(Declaration of Alman-Ata, World Health Organization, as cited in Coulson,
Goldstein & Ntuli, 1998).
“Primary health care addresses the main health problems in the community,
providing promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative services accordingly”
(WHO, 1998).
Primary health care services vary by country and community, but usually include
promotion of proper nutrition and an adequate supply of safe water; basic
sanitation; maternal and child care, and family planning; immunization;
prevention and control of endemic disease; education regarding prevailing health
problems, their prevention and control; and treatment for common diseases and
injuries.
Social and health policy in South Africa
Health policy as articulated in the government’s original Reconstruction and Development
Programme (1994), as well as White Paper for the Transformation of the Health System in
South Africa (1997), emphasizes the following principles that are all highly relevant to the
practice of community work:
•
Equity: Everyone needs to have equal opportunities to enjoy health and, conse
quently, certain target groups (such as rural people, women, children, the aged
and the disabled need to be prioritized.
•
Empowerment and respect: Health promotion activities should be designed to
increase and enhance the control that communities have over their own health,
and in the process traditional beliefs and values need to be respected.
Participation: Communities and individuals need to be involved as respected
•
partners in the planning and implementation of development programmes. Token
participation must be avoided at all costs when dealing with communities.
•
Intersectoral activity: Health services are redefined to include agriculture, food,
industry, education, housing and communications as services essential for the
promotion of health. Multidisciplinary inter-agency working is also emphasized.
•
Emphasis on primary health care: Such emphasis, rather than on secondary or
tertiary level health care, provides essential, affordable and acceptable health care
services close to where people live, and involves full community participation
(Coulson et al., 1998:8)
•
The principle of human orientation: While people have concrete needs that must
be addressed, their abstract needs must also be fulfilled. One cannot separate the
physical aspects of the project from the abstract human aspects. They must go
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hand in hand, otherwise there is no development. Projects must be planned in
such a way that the process of abstract objective attainment flows naturally from
the process to address physical and concrete needs. Under no circumstances may
we address the basic physical needs to the detriment of the people’s human
dignity and other abstract human needs such as happiness and contentment
(Swanepoel and De Beer, 2006)
Ownership: too often mobilization is done in a spirit of inviting the people to
come and join someone else’s activity, to treat people as guests on someone else’s
property. This is altogether wrong. People must have the power to make decisions.
It is their destiny, it is their future, and it their development. Because the people
are the owners, no one else can be the main role player. All the role players must
be there to support and assist the people in carrying out their owner’s
responsibility (Swanepoel and De Beer, 2006)
Release: the real purpose of development is to eradicate poverty. In other words,
development wants to free people from the deprivation trap. Development efforts
are efforts to break the deprivation trap so that people can become free/ released
from the deprivation trap. Development should become an effort to release the
whole person from the jaws of poverty…permanently or in a sustainable manner
(Swanepoel and De Beer, 2006).
In addition to the above principles, Lombard (1991) alludes to the following principles:
Individuality: communities are unique because the people who constitute them
•
are unique. Cultural, religious, social, economic and political factors all
contribute to the unique character of a community. Community workers must
always take cognizance of the community’s individuality.
Self help: self help implies that the members of a community accept the
•
responsibility to do something for themselves, in order to improve their
circumstances; this should however happen under the guidance of a community
worker.
Change: Community work implies change. Strategies for change can include
•
negotiation, canvassing, social protest and the use of mass media.
Development of local leadership: community work is not only concerned with
•
identifying group life within the community but also with identifying the leaders
of groups whose involvement in community activities will encourage the
involvement and participation of members of the group. Community work
therefore also includes the development of leadership and human potential.
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Academic Service Learning.
This teaching and learning model is defined by Rhoads and Howards (1999) as a pedagogical model that intentionally integrates academic learning and relevant community
service. Stanton (200) delineates the following principles underpinning this approach:
•
Academic service learning is designed to foster a sense of civic responsibility in
students and community members.
•
The community services experiences must be relevant to the academic course of
study.
•
There is an intentional effort made to utilize community-based learning on behalf
of academic learning and to utilize academic learning to inform community
service.
•
Needs must be identify by members of the community rather than being imposed
on them by outsiders.
•
There must be a partnership between the university and the community.
•
Service learning emphasizes reciprocity between the university and community,
and between those who serve and those who learn. Those who serve are also
learners and those being served should have significant control over what is
learned.
•
There is integration of two kinds of learning i.e. active, participatory learning and
passive, information-processing learning.
•
Academic staff responsible for teaching such modules needs to provide
emotional support as well as intellectual challenges for students engaged in
service leaning.
There is an emphasis on community development and empowerment, so that
•
those being served become better able to serve their communities.
•
Students should be encouraged to engage in critical reflection about the
experience through writing (e.g. keeping diaries or journals and writing group
reports), as well as through discussion-before, during and after the service
experience.
Types of communities
Although the term “community” is a somewhat elusive concept, we can distinguish three
main types of communities (Swil, 1982).
•
Geographical: Localities with territorial boundaries, e.g. the Ennerdale
community.
Functional: Communities that share common interest, e.g. the Deaf community.
•
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•
Geographical/functional: People who live in a defined geographical community
and who share common interests and needs, e.g. the people living in an informal
settlement on the banks of the Jukskei river in Alexandra.
Swanepoel (1992) maintains that the people involved in a community
development projects must be an identifiable unit. The action group must be
fairly small and members of the action group must live in fairly close proximity.
Goals in community work.
Three types of goals may be distinguished:
Task goals are concerned with concrete task that are undertaken to meet specific
•
needs or solve particular problems, e.g. organizing a workshop to educate the
public about the problems of mental handicap.
•
Process goals are concerned with the development of people. Through
cooperation and participation in the community work process, people are helped
to take responsibility; to grow; to develop the skills and confidence to tackle
problems; and to develop leadership capacity.
•
Relationship goals focus on changing and enhancing relationship within and
between different communities. For example, during the 1993/94 period of unrest
in South Africa, peace monitors attempted to improve relationship between
different ethic groups and political factions (Swil, 1982).
Models of community work.
There are four main models or paradigms of community work.
The social or community planning model.
•
This approach addresses task goals, such as the establishment of school for children with
cerebral palsy. It is essentially a problem-solving process that emphasizes the role of the
expert and his or her expertise. Recipients of service are not necessarily actively involved
in determining policy, procedures or goals, or implementing plans. This is a “top-down”
approach and involves doing things for rather than with people, which may foster community dependency. It nevertheless reflects the values of caring society and has resulted
in the establishment of many welfare organizations such as children homes and institutions for the aged or disabled persons (Mitchell, 1987:116-122).
The social or political action model.
•
This approach is used when a segment of the community needs to make demands on the
larger community for increased resources or treatment more in accordance with social
justice or democracy. In other words, they may need to bargain and negotiate with author-
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ities in order to achieve a more equitable distribution of power and resources. The aim is
to empower people who are powerless. This type of approach utilizes various conflict
strategies such as boycotts, strikes, marches, sit-ins and petitions. For example, members
of the Deaf community organized a march to SABC to demand greater use of subtitles on
television, and members of Disabled People South Africa (DPSA) organized a petition to
demand the installation of ramps in public buildings. The petition was delivered to the
Minister of Housing at the bottom of the steps to the Union Buildings, illustrating the fact
that this particular building was inaccessible to persons in wheelchairs.
Ideally, this approach helps people to learn skills as how to conduct meetings, engage in
group decision making and develop leadership capacity. Underlying this approach is the
belief in the force of number to bring about change; hence efforts are made to encourage
participation by as wide a spectrum of the community as possible. Roles of the community action organizer include that of educator, resource developer, agitator, fund-raiser,
and arranger of meeting places and publicity.
Although this approach rejects all forms of violence, the use of conflict strategies as well
as the involvement of large numbers of people often generates the potential for violence.
Furthermore, although this model has helped to achieve many and reforms, some of these
changes do not always last long, as a “backlash” sometimes occurs, with hard-earned
gains gradually being eroded (Mitchell, 1987:123-126).
•
The social or community education model.
Although this model receives limited attention in overseas literature, it represents an
important part of the South African community work practice and is particularly relevant
to health care practitioners. The main reason for its importance is that there is a tremendous need for community education in South Africa, in contrast with many First World
countries (Lombard, 1992).
The aims of community education include any of the following:
•
To develop in community members knowledge and insight into the nature of the
community, as well as its problems and needs.
To make the community aware of the ways in which problems can be solved and
•
needs met.
•
To motivate the community to participate in problem solving and satisfying their
needs.
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To equip community members with the necessary skills to enable them to perform
their work satisfactorily.
To instill in the community the appropriate attitudes needed to cope with demands
in life.
Obstacles encountered in implementing the community education model include deficiencies in the quality and quantity of education possessed by community members, negative attitudes towards organizations that could be of assistance to members, and low levels of acceptance of new ideas, facilities, practice and services.
Goals emphasized include process goals, for example the development of understanding,
or education in role fulfillment.
Typical strategies include the development of the community’s intellectual and emotional resources through education. It is also important to utilize the principles of adult
learning when attempting to educate adults.
•
Demonstrate respect for learners and participants and their ability to learn.
•
Learning must be active and participatory, involving dialogue and discussion,
rather than passive listening to a lecture or rote learning.
•
The educational content must be relevant to people’s needs and problems, and
help adults deal with problems in living.
•
Participants need to be assisted to identify their learning needs and choose the
content of the education rather than having experts develop curricula for them.
Media through which change can be effected include meetings, reports, newsletters, pamphlets, posters, radio, television, drama, puppets, role-plays, sporting events, videos, stickers, bill-boards, notices on walls or vehicles, newspapers and magazines.
Examples of community education projects include workshops to educate workers
employed in noisy environments about noise-induced hearing loss; feeding and language
stimulation workshops for caregivers of children with celebralpalsy; workshops for preschool children regarding care of their ears; workshops for people in old-age homes
regarding the use of hearing aids and so forth.
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The locality or community development model.
Community development is defined by the United Nations (as cited in South Africa,
1997a:93) as follows:
The process in which the efforts of the people themselves are united with those of government authorities to improve the economic, social and cultural conditions of their communities. It involves two processes: the participation of the people themselves in efforts to
improve their living conditions with as much reliance as possible on their own initiatives;
and the provision of technical and other services in ways which encourage initiative, selfhelp and mutual help and make more effective.
This approach emphasises the development of the inhabitants of a local community such
as a rural village or an urban neighborhood. The focus is on self-help and mutual aid activities, enhancing community participation and social relationships. For example, patients
who have sustained strokes and their families could be helped to establish self-help associations for the hard of hearing.
The community development worker tries to avoid giving direction and instead adopts the
roles of enabler, encourager, guide, teacher, catalyst, coordinator and facilitator of the
problem-solving process. Efforts are made to encourage natural leadership from within the
whole to identify and mobilize itself to deal with its own problems.
On the positive side, this model promotes self-reliance and development of the people.
However, shortcomings of this approach are that participation is not always a pleasure
and involves cost to the participants in terms of time, effort and sacrifice of leisure time.
Sponsors frequently expect results too soon from what is essentially a slow educational
process leading to “community betterment”. In some parts of South Africa, lack of natural
resources and a harsh climate can serve as obstacles to the community development
process. Also, when a community is divided by strong opposing beliefs, for example
intense rivalries between supporters of different political parties, it may be difficult to
make the community development initiatives work.
Principles of community development.
•
Community workers usually work in environments characterized by poverty. It is important that organizations and persons involved in development by guided by theory, vision
or principles that represent ideas towards which one must strive. Swanepoel (1997:2-12)
describes eight principles, as set out below.
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•
The principle of human orientation
People in “deprivation trap” have basic physical needs as well as abstract human needs,
for example the need for dignity. Community development must therefore fulfil both concrete and abstract human needs. The person in need should not be harmed by the development, and the development of such people should never harm the environment.
•
The principle of participation
Local people, who for years have lived in deprivation, surviving the hardship of poverty,
have something outsiders do not have. Hence, through their participation, their “common
sense” knowledge of the political, social, economic, cultural and natural environment can
be used to great effect. Secondly, people who do not participate in their own development
have been shown to have no affinity for developmental efforts and their results. Thirdly,
participation is a way of ensuring equity and that the poorest of the poor are part of the
decision-making process likely to affect their development. According to Coulson et al.
(1998:137), voices from as many stakeholders as possible need to be heard and encouraged to participate actively.
•
The principle of empowerment
Participation is the decision making and participation means having power. Empowerment
demands the knowledge and understanding to be able to make the correct decisions.
Consequently, the community worker must be a source of information. The empowerment
of people manifests in groups of people working together.
•
The principle of ownership
The principle of ownership seeks to entrench the ownership of development where it
belongs, namely, with the community. Community development projects do not belong
to initiating non-governmental organizations (NGOs), professionals or government departments. They act as facilitators for the people who run their own projects. According to
Coulson et al. (1998:139), it is critical that community developers work with rather than
for communities.
•
The principle of simplicity
According to Swanepoel (1997:13), “small is better”. Community development cannot
address sophisticated problems through large-scale projects, even if it appears that the
needs of the people demand big complex projects.
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Features of community work.
Community development has the following features according to Swanepoel and De Beer
(2006:36-39) and Lombard (1991:70-71)
Collective action: Community development is collective action that includes
•
collective decision making. People’s power is realized through groups working
together. Involvement of individuals, groups and organizations is emphasized.
•
The prevention and solution of social problems is central to community work.
Need orientation: Without a need or the perception of a need, community
•
development cannot take place. Therefore, needs identification is a prerequisite
for action-as the first step taken before a project commences.
•
Objective orientation: Each concrete need that is identified must be addressed by
striving towards the realization of a concrete objective. A community development
project cannot have a vague objective, such as “a better life”. The setting of an
objective must be a positive act showing that people have decided for themselves
to do something about their needs.
•
Action at grassroots level: Community development is primarily a process in
which ordinary people play the leading part, with the government, experts and the
elite playing a facilitating role. Because they are grassroots oriented, community
development efforts are small and simple, and address the basic needs of those at
grassroots or micro level.
•
Directedness of action: Action at grassroots level to achieve specific objectives
through the mobilization of relevant community resources.
•
Maintaining or improving the social functioning of communities.
Self determination in relation to action in dealing with social needs and social
•
problems.
•
Direction of the community work process by a specific person or practitioner,
namely a community worker.
•
Community work is a conscious, planned and scientific process of social
interaction directed at problem solving. (Lombard, 1991).
The outcome of community development
Unsuccessful community development projects can result in disappointment, frustration
and even deeper apathy, whereas successful projects can have the following results
(Swanepoel, 1997):
•
Awareness creation: People become aware of themselves and their environment;
of their needs and their resources. Community development can also change gen-
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eral apathy into a more positive outlook.
•
Further development: A community development projects invariably stimulates
further activity because that which was established must be managed and
maintained. Moreover, the attainment of an objective usually leads to further
needs being identified, new objectives being set and further action being taken to
reach the objective.
•
Demonstration effect: A successful project is likely to demonstrate to everyone,
especially those who initially had doubts about the enterprise, that people who
work together can make a difference. Often, when certain projects such as a
vegetable garden are successfully initiated, other similar projects are started in that
area.
•
Community buildings: Community development has the potential to strengthen
and build communities by enhancing leadership, institutions and organizational
ability.
The main actors in community development.
Swanepoel (1997) refers to the main actors in community development as the action
group and the community worker, which in turn are influenced by institutional policy and
commitment. When a community worker enters an inhabited area, he or she must identify a group within the larger community or interlocking communities. This group will take
the necessary action and will become what we call the “action group”. It is important to
start with a small group and one project, which can later stimulate the establishment of
the action groups and further project. Groups that can act as action groups include existing interest groups or adhoc groups of concerned individuals united by common need.
The attitude of the community worker should be one of respect for the people, their norms
and values. Community workers must promote the notion that they and the action group
are partners. While wanting the action group to reach its concrete goals, the community
worker should be more concerned about the action group’s abstract goals, for example to
help people learn, achieve empowerment and meet their abstract human needs. The community worker fulfils one more of the following roles: guide, adviser, advocate, enabler,
catalyst and facilitator. The ideal community worker is possibly summed up in the credo
devised by James Yen in the 1920s to guide the Rural Reconstruction Movement in China:
Live among the people;
Learn from the people;
Plan with the people;
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Work with the people;
Start with what the people know;
Build on what the people have….
Teach by showing, learn by doing
Most community workers are employed by either a government institution or an NGO that
prescribes procedures and approaches. Ideally, the organizational structures are policies
should assist community workers. However, some common problem include a production
orientation that emphasises concrete results; top-down needs identification; centralized
planning from a regional or central office; restrictive budgeting; top-down control system
that leave little scope for community workers to use their own initiative; unclear policies
and strategies; output personnel assessment whereby organizations assess their personnel
according to qualitative, concrete outputs rather than qualitative, abstract goals; townbiased incentives leaving few incentives for the community worker to stay and work in isolated underdeveloped areas; regular personnel transfers to other areas and projects without considering whether the time is appropriate for a project to lose its community worker; control duties for community worker over local people which conflict with a developmental role; inappropriate training; and sectoral competition whereby there are sometimes several community workers in one area, representing various organizations competing for the people’s attention and participation, and for scarce resources (Swanepoel,
1997).
Steps in the community development process.
Although different steps or phases have been delineated in the literature, the following are
probably the most common:
Phase 1:
Contact making, orientation to the community and compiling a community profile
Phase 2:
Needs identification and prioritizing.
Phase 3:
Resource identification
Phase 4:
Establishment of structure of intervention, such as a committee
Phase 5:
Developing a plan of action
Implementation of the action plan
Phase 6:
Phase 7:
Evaluation
Phase 8:
Withdrawal of the community worker.
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Contact making, orientation to the community and compiling a community profile
The contact-making phase is crucial for a community development project. Community
workers need to realize that they enter a living entity and their entrance should not disturb the rhythm of the community. People must get to know the community worker in
order to accept him or her. Compassion on the part of the community worker and openness about his or her position and task are likely to make the process of acceptance much
easier. It is important that the community worker acknowledge the accepted leaders.
During contact making, the community worker should get to know the people, their circumstances and needs, as well as start identifying the action group to be targeted for the
purposes of a community development project.
Aspects to be included in a community profile are:
•
Name of the community
•
Physical description of the community
•
Population characteristics
•
Socio-economic stratification of the area
•
Housing, sewerage and sanitation
•
Employment opportunities
•
History of the area
Cultural factors, norms and traditions
•
•
Power, leadership and authority
Recreational resource
•
•
Transport
•
Educational facilities
•
Health services
•
Welfare service
•
Family ties
•
Friendship and animosities
Opinion makers
•
•
Resource person
•
General comments
•
References and sources consulted.
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Needs identification and prioritizing
During the contact-making phase, a community worker cannot help but become aware of
the people’s needs. Through observation, listening to what people say and by drawing up
the community profile, a fairly clear picture usually emerges. It is also possible that the
previous research identified certain needs. This, then, is the time for the community worker to “listen eloquently” to the voice of the community; to discover how the people perceive their needs; and to ask how he or she can be of service to the community.
Swanepoel and de Beer (2006) suggest the following list of do’s and don’ts in community
needs identification:
•
Don’t call a public meeting when you enter an area to do need identification
exercise.
•
Don’t ask the people what their needs are.
•
Don’t tell the people what their needs are.
•
Don’t take the lead in the identification of needs.
•
Don’t regard your perception of needs as more important than theirs.
•
Do just move among the people and their needs will be identified and discussed
naturally.
•
Do help people to believe that they can do something about their needs.
•
Do show people that you believe in their ability to do something about their
needs.
Chambers (1992:8) suggests the following techniques in assessing the needs of the
community:
•
Direct observation
•
Secondary data review
Key informants
•
•
Semi structured interviews
•
Walk about the community
•
Key indicators
Key probes.
•
Having identified the needs does not mean that it is the community workers’ job to
address all the needs. It means however that s/he must use the information and bring the
community into contact with people with relevant knowledge and interest to address the
need. The community worker can act as a broker to link the community with resources,
human and material.
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Resource identification
Resource identification is part of the survey. The irony is that need addressed by a project
is invariably the lack of one or many resources. Yet no community, however poor the people may be, is entirely without resources. There are four main types of resources in any
area:
•
Natural resources include water, a temperate climate, good soil, rainfall,
vegetation such as trees, and minerals. No project should lead to abuse of such
resources. They are particularly important in rural areas. Harsh climates, low
rainfall and poor soil can be serious obstacles to development.
•
Manufacture resources provide infrastructure and include roads, water
reticulation, communication networks, shops, markets, and electricity, buildings,
factories and meeting places for those involved in a project. Community
development projects can establish infrastructure in the form of crèche, or
improve infrastructure, for example repairing a school building. Infrastructure is
usually managed and maintained by an authority whose permission must be
obtained before it can be used. One of the most important manufacture resources
for community development is money from an external source. However it is
important that the action group knows the conditions attached to any financial
grants from donors.
Human resources include human skills, knowledge, norms and traditions. The
•
community worker should assist people to become better human resource through
education, training, reflection, debate, decision making, experimental
implementation and evaluation. It is importance that the community worker
shows respect for the people’s norms and traditions. There may also be resources
outside the area where a project is to be launched, for example professionals from
outside the community.
•
Organizational resources include people’s ability to organize, as well as existing
interest groups such as burial societies, ratepayers’ society, youth clubs and sports
organizations.
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Establishment of a structure of intervention, such as a committee.
In most African communities one finds three types of leaders: traditional leaders who fill
their position through hereditary leadership and whose views, whether positive or negative, will greatly influence development efforts; democratically elected leaders; and opinion makers who influence people and articulate their feelings and wishes. The latter type
of leader is usually elected onto committees. Traditional and democratic leaders may be
aware of small project but may choose to remain uninvolved.
Because community capacity building, including the development of leadership skills, is
an important objective of community development, the community worker should never
accept the leadership of a project. A committee is elected by the action group, not to the
community worker. If an action group is small and its members have close contact with
one another, they are in the position to effect decision making and action and consequently, the need for a committee fall away.
Developing a plan of action
Planning means bringing together three elements – the need, the resources and the objective – and relating them to fourth element, namely action. Planning is incremental in that
it is a learning process where every decision on action is formulated in the light of an
assessment of previous actions. Planning must and can only be short term, with each
objective lying not further than one year down the line. Objectives must be concrete and
must address the identified need. Objectives must also be attainable within a short period as quick results act as incentives for the action group to strive harder towards its next
objective. It is important that the community worker be honest about what an objective
will cost an action group to strive harder towards its next objective at the same time.
Planning must address the questions as to what action must be taken, when that action
must take place, who will be responsible for that action, and how it should be undertaken. Planning must involve the whole action group. Regular action group meetings must
held where the committee must inform the action group of its actions, and the action
group must have the opportunity to discuss them at the length and even reverse or change
decisions of the committee. Finally, planning must be recorded (Swanepoel, 1997).
Implementation of the action
According to Swanepoel (1997:162), implementation is the coming to fruition of a process
that started during the contact-making phase and progressed through the needs identification, objective-setting, organizing and planning phases. It must therefore be regarded as
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the test or highlight of the project when the first steps are taken to implement the action
plan. Implementation is as much a part of experimentation and learning as planning is.
Although the mode of implementation differs from project to project, implementation
should always be done according to a plan. If the plan cannot be operationalised, it means
that there is something wrong with it. Circumstances change; hence implementation
should occur as soon as possible after plan formulation. The action group should participate in implementation. Under certain circumstances external persons or organizations
can also be involved in implementation, for example land surveyors may need to perform
certain technical tasks. Finally, the successful implementation of project should be celebrated – a celebration strengthens relationships among those involved and advertises to
the world that the action group has achieved something independently and through its
own efforts.
Evaluation
Evaluation is an absolute necessity and the most important evaluation is that done by the
action group. Furthermore, without evaluation, community development cannot be a
learning process. Evaluation is an integral part of a project. It forms part of the survey and
community profile, and evaluates the information obtained. It is also linked to needs and
resource identification by seeking the fit between needs and resources. It is part and parcel of planning, in that it tests the situation specificity and feasibility of planning. It is tied
up with implementation in that it assesses the action group’s ability to operationalise the
plan.
According to Coulson et al. (1998:159), the planning cycle involves needs assessment,
leading to the formulation of objectives and to deciding on indicators, followed by project implementation, evaluation, and back to needs assessment.
There are two types of evaluation. The one is undertaken throughout the life of the project and is called monitoring. The second type is an action carried out at the end of a project to identify weaknesses and mistakes made. It tries to establish whether the project was
successful as a learning process, and whether the action group gained more than only the
physical objective it was seeking to attain. Aspects that need to be considered include
appropriateness, feasibility and effectiveness of the project. Swanepoel (1997:178-181)
lists various questions to establish the effectiveness of objective attainment for example:
Was the object specified concretely? Was the objective within the reach of the action
group? Evaluation also seeks to establish whether the objective was attained successfully
in terms of community work principles, for example: Did the action group on the need?
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Were action group members encouraged to participate in the discussion during meetings?
and so forth.
Participatory self-evaluation is concerned with a project as well its product. The process
is what happens in an action group- they way in which it communicates plans, works,
holds meetings, etc. The product is what the action group accomplishes, the objective it
has reached, the maintenance of what it has achieved, and the happiness and contentment of the members on reaching their objectives. All people involved in the community
development project should be involved in evaluation. The group must evaluate itself regularly throughout the life of the project, and the community worker can play a facilitating
role in this regard. Swanepoel (1997:182) has formulated a lengthy list of process and
product questions from which to choose. The action group can also evaluate the community worker. Records should include both quantitative information about the project’s
physical details and qualitative information on attitudes and perceptions. Good record
keeping of a project makes evaluation easier and more meaningful, and can enhance the
learning process. In the words of Swanepoel (1997:190):
Evaluation must be part of the process of discovery through which
An understanding of reality is attained. This understanding allows
The participants to enjoy a learning experience providing further
Opportunities for capacity building – an absolute prerequisite for
empowerment.
Withdrawal of the community worker.
The community worker should withdraw and let the action group stand on its own feet
when it has enough self-reliance to do so. Furthermore, it is more important to maintain
the progress towards self-sufficiency and self-reliance than it is to work towards the
moment of total withdrawal. Hence the main concern should not be the timing of an
action group’s ability to go it alone, but rather that they are steadily progressing to that
stage (Swanepoel, 1997:55).
Assignments
1.
Conduct a community profile of your neighborhood.
Conduct a community needs assessment of you r neighborhood.
2.
Based on the community profile and the need assessment of your neighborhood,
3.
develop a project plan to address the identified needs.
4.
Using appropriate examples, discuss the community work process.
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WORKING WITH INDIVIDUALS
References
Chambers, R. (1992). Rapid and Participatory Rural Appraisal. Africanus, 22(1et2).
Coulson, N. Goldstein, S. & Ntuli, A. (1998). Promoting health in South Africa, an Action
Manual. Sandton South Africa: Heinemann.
Lombard, A. (1992). Community Work and Community Development: Perspectives on
Social Development. Pretoria: HAUM.
McKendrick, B.W. (1987). Introduction to Social Work in South Africa.
Pinetown: Owen Burgess.
Mitchell, W. (1987). Social Work with Communities (in B.W. McKendrick, Introduction to
Social Work in South Africa. Pinetown: Owen Burgess.
Ross, E. & Deverell, .A. (2005). Psychosocial Approaches to Health, Illness and Disability.
Pretoria: Van Schaik.
Ross, E, & Owolawi, D. (2002). Academic Service Learning in Speech Pathology and
Audiology. A paper presented at the SAAD Conference on student centered learning.
University of Witwatersrand Johannesburg, 2-3 December 2002.
Stanton, J. (2006). Workshop on Academic Service Learning Community: University of
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 23 October 2006.
Swanepoel, N. & De Beer, F. (2006). Community Development: Breaking the Cycle of
Poverty. South Africa: Juta.
Swanepoel, H. (1997). Community Development: Putting Plans into Action. Cape Town:
Juta.
Swil, I. (1982). Community Work Theory and Case Studies; A Primer. Cape Town, Juta.
An Overview of Counseling in Terms of Main Phases and Skills.
The main aim of counseling is to improve the quality of life of the people and help them
to cope more effectively with problems in living. There are numerous theories of counseling that refer to different phases or stages; however, there appear to be three main phases
common to the majority of models, namely the beginning phase involving establishment
of a relationship, exploration and assessment of the problem, and planning or goal setting,
the middle or work phase involving implementation of the plan and goal attainment, and
the ending phase involving termination of the helping relationship, planning changemaintenance strategies and evaluation. In the real-life situation, these phases are not
sharply demarcated, nor do they necessarily occur in a linear fashion. However, for study
purposes they are discussed separately here.
Phase 1 – The beginning phase
This phase includes the following steps:
•
Establishing rapport
Unless clinicians succeed in engaging clients in the helping process, they may be guarded in revealing vital information and feelings, and may not even return after the initial session. In order to engage clients successfully and help them open up and tell their stories,
it is vitally important for counselors to reduce the level of threat and gain the clients’ trust.
To this end clients need to perceive the counselor as empathic, understanding and genuinely interested in their well-being. Establishing rapport also requires that practitioners
manifest certain professional attitudes and values: a non-judgmental attitude, acceptance,
a commitment to the clients’ rights of self-determination; and respect for the client’s worth
and dignity, uniqueness, individuality and problem-solving capacities.
•
Exploring the problem situation
Establishing rapport and exploring clients’ problems are processes that practitioners
implement concurrently. Exploration begins by attending to the emotional states and
immediate concerns manifested by clients. In this respect it is important to “start here
where the client is, at that point in time”, for example, by asking an open ended question
such as “Mrs X, I wonder if you’d like to tell me what brought you to the clinic”. Gradually,
the clinician can broaden the exploration to encompass various individual, interpersonal
and environmental issues, and explore in depth those aspects of the problem that appear
salient. During the process of exploration, counselors also need to be alert to and high-
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light strengths manifested by clients.
•
Formulating a multidimensional assessment
Assessment is an ongoing process that begins with the first contact with the client. An adequate assessment includes analysis of the problem, the person or persons, and the ecological context. With regard to the person, it is important to determine the client’s needs, coping capacity, strengths and limitations, and motivation to work on the problem(s). it is also
vital to assess the duration and severity of the problem, the extent to which the problem
is susceptible to change, and to be sensitive to hints at further problems not being discussed. The ecological context includes factors in the person’s family, school or work environment, as well as social support systems such as friends and neighbors. The ecological
environment also encompasses cultural factors. For example, some cultures have indigenous helping persons such as traditional healers, religious leaders and relatives from
extended families who have been invested with authority to help individuals and families
in times of crises. Finally, recurring themes that come up during interviews are also important, as they indicate areas of concern to clients and problems that have not been fully
explored or resolved. A working assessment involves synthesizing or integrating all relevant information gained in the exploration process. It is desirable to involve clients as partners in the process by sharing impressions with them as to the nature of the problems and
asking for their feedback to confirm or disconfirm these impressions, and by seeking additional input. It is also helpful to further highlight their strengths and to identify also relevant resource systems that can be tapped or need to be developed to accomplish remediation of the problem.
If the problem situation is complex, the clinician needs to help clients to focus on one
problem that, if managed successfully, will contribute to the management of other problems, for example, he or she could ask clients which of the concerns they have mentioned
bothers them the most, and which they would like to work on. Finally, once an issue has
been chosen for exploration, the counselor need to help clients to clarify or concretize the
problem, issue or concern in terms of specific experiences, behaviors and feelings. For
example, if a parent describes a child as being “impossible”, what does he/she mean?
When clinicians and clients reach agreement about the nature of the problems involved,
they are ready to enter the process of negotiating goals, assuming that the clients are adequately motivated to advance to Phase II of the helping process.
Enhancing motivation or client workability
•
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Indispensable to success in the helping process are acknowledgment of the problem and
adequate motivation on the part of the clients to work actively towards its solution.
Involuntary clients often manifest initial negativism towards therapists and resist effort to
engage them in the counseling process. Many of these clients, as well as others who come
to agencies in response to ultimatums issued by spouses, parents, employers, teachers or
significant others, either deny having a problem or attribute to source of the difficulties to
another person or to external circumstances. In still other instances, clients acknowledge
the problem and do not lack incentives for change, but assume a passive role, expecting
the clinician to work on their difficulties for them, for instance some teenagers who stutter. Consequently, it is vital that counselors impart a belief in the client’s ability to work as
a partner in searching for a remedial course of action, and help them in the search for
incentives, for example the learning sign language can help them to communicate with
their deaf child.
•
Making referrals
Exploration of the client’s problems often reveals that resources or services beyond those
provided by the agency are needed to remedy or ameliorate presenting difficulties.
•
Negotiating goals and formulating a contract
When the counselor and the individual client, couple or family have reached an agreement concerning the nature of the difficulties and the environmental systems that are
involved, the participants are ready to negotiate the goals. This is a mutual process aimed
at identifying what needs to be changed, and what related actions need to be taken to
resolve or ameliorate the problematic situation.
After goals have been negotiated, participants undertake the final task of Phase I, namely
formulating a contract. The contract, which is also mutually negotiated, consists of an
agreement or understanding between the counselor and client that specifies the goals to
be accomplished, relevant strategies to be implemented, roles and responsibilities of participants, and participants and practical arrangements (e.g. advising the clinician of one is
unable to keep an appointment). Mutually formulating the contract clarifies for clients
what they may realistically expect from the practitioner and what is expected of them.
In view of the importance of the diagnostic or assessment phase, it may be helpful at this
point to elaborate on the counseling processes during this stage. For example, the rapport
established during the initial diagnosis and evaluation is crucial in influencing the future
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course of the client professional relationship. In the medical model, a careful case history is obtained and various tests are usually administered. In the case of childhood disorders, after the testing has been completed, the professional usually “counsels” the parents
by providing the results of the tests and recommending the next step that the parents
should take.
In variation of the individual medical model is the diagnosis-by-committee process, in
which the child is tested by a team of professionals, either on the same day, or over two
or three days. The parents are then invited to a case conference where each health care
professional presents his/her report. An alternative to the medical model adopted in this
chapter is the client-centered diagnostic approach.
•
Client Centered Diagnosis
In order to reach an accurate diagnosis or assessment, it is critical that the health care professional understands where the client is coming from and has some empathy for the
client’s background and history. Even though different professionals are concerned with
the assessment and treatment of specific disorders, depending on their area of specialty, it
is ineffectual to treat a specific disorder while ignoring the rest of the individual. Instead,
successful intervention required that we adopt a holistic approach, assess and treat the
whole person and take into consideration physical, social and psychological factors.
In the case of childhood disorders, one parent, usually the mother tends to develop an
intuition or awareness that something is wrong with the child. The first fear that parents
frequently have when they suspect that something is wrong is that the child might be mentally handicapped. The mother usually confides her fears to the father, who in turn often
responds by denying the existence of any problems and reassuring his wife that nothing is
a miss with the baby. In the case of a child who does not appear to respond to sounds,
each parent may surreptitiously engage in testing the child’s hearing by, for example, shaking a bunch of keys or some other object behind the child’s head. A part of the denial
process, they may find countless reasons why the child does not respond. However, as
their fears are not usually allayed, families tend to reach the point where – with a great
deal of trepidation – they finally decide to approach a professional for a diagnosis of the
disorder.
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When clients arrive for a consultation, they need to be given the opportunity to “tell their
story” to someone who will listen carefully and attentively. An open-ended question in the
form of a statement, such as “can you tell me what brought you here?” or “I wonder if
you’d like to tell me some of your concerns about X” will generally elicit the story and
allow the clients to start at the point where they are. It can be helpful to establish at the
outset the major concerns of the parents and their expectations of the professional. Parents
can also be asked about their children’s positive qualities, along with their challenges and
issues. Older children, adolescents and adults can be asked to describe their strengths and
best qualities (Strauss, 2001: 228).
After the parents have shared their concerned and told their story, it can be highly beneficial and empowering to enlist their help as co-workers and co-diagnosticians. The rationale for this approach is that parents have been found to be among the most important
members of the educational team in that they have knowledge and experience regarding
their child, and they usually exert the greatest impact on the child’s overall development.
Infact, the involvement of parents is crucial to the success of therapy and is necessary to
sustain the effects of intervention once therapy has been terminated (McConkey, 1985:
19).
One way of enlisting their cooperation is by approaching parents with the attitude: “Let’s
discuss the problem together and see if we can some up with solutions.” Alternatively, one
could ask them to score test results or elicit responses from the child. Sitting in on the
assessment and being involved in the actual diagnosis can help to reduce the denial
mechanism as well as strengthen the bond between clients and professionals.
Grandparents, caregivers and siblings who may have accompanied the parents for the
consultation can also be brought into the process.
In the case of adult client, they too can be involved in all aspects of testing. In addition,
it is common practice to suggest that adult clients take a friend or family member with tem
to medical consultations, especially where diagnoses or prognoses are discussed. Shock,
denial and anxiety often lead to clients refusing to acknowledge bad news, or being
unable to retain complex medical information. Having a friend or family member present
allows the client the opportunity to check information after the consultation, reduced feelings of isolation and anxiety, and allows the client to defer the task of asking medical questions until he or she is ready. In some cases it may also be necessary to have someone
accompany the client, as side effects such as nausea and fatigue (upon receiving
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chemotherapy, for instance) may prevent the client from driving or negotiating public
transport on his or her own.
difficult for the child. For both the parents and the child, it is great relief to know that the
child is not supposed to be able to do all the test items.
The most notable exception to this use of social support is the case of HIV/AIDS. Most
patients living with HIV refuse to rely on any form of social support as they are afraid of
disclosure and possible consequences such as isolation and discrimination.
Possibly the best approach to reduce the therapist’s anxiety is adequate preparation, which
usually involves having a plan of how to proceed and strategies that can be employed to
probe areas in which the therapists is interested. It is also important to be familiar with test
materials and items, and to review any information about a client before the session.
•
Working with Clients during the Diagnostic Stage.
One must realize that when an adult client requests an evaluation or when parents bring
a child in for evaluation, they are exposing a part of themselves. They are therefore likely
to feel hurt, vulnerable or annoyed by thoughtless comments. An initial consultation can
be an anxiety provoking situation for the adult client, the parents and the child as well as
for the therapist. The adult clients may have fears as a result of knowing other people who
have experiences similar illnesses or disabilities. It is likely that they will be concerned
about the effect a poor diagnosis will have on them and their families, their future financial stability and employability. Parents often experience anxiety regarding the way the
child will be handled, have fears regarding the child’s performance, and worry about his
or her behavior in the clinic setting. For the inexperienced clinician, an initial evaluation
can be a frightening and exhausting experience, as it required managing an unfamiliar
child and gathering many kinds of information at the same time. Finally, the child may
also overwhelmed by the new and strange surroundings and unfamiliar people and tasks.
Efforts therefore need to be made to decrease the anxiety of all three parties (McFarlane,
Fujiki & Brinton, 1984).
The first consideration in reducing the client’s anxiety is to reduce any anxiety felt by the
parents and therapist. The second consideration is to help the client feel comfortable,
engage and maintain the client’s interest, and elicit his or her participation in activities.
Some of the parent’s anxiety during a diagnostic evaluation is related to the fact that their
child is being tested, which may be a very threatening experience. Consequently, many
parents tend to say, “Oh, he knows that, he can do that at home”, as they see the child
struggling with a test item. Others find it hard to refrain from cueing their child, for example, “Point to the cowboy, Sean”. In order to reduce test anxiety and frustration, it can be
helpful to give a brief explanation of the test and explain that many tests start with easy
items; go on to more challenging items, and proceed until the items are consistently too
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With respect to reducing the child’s level of anxiety, in most cases it is not necessary to
separate a child from his or her parents. For very young children, it may be neither practical nor valuable to test the child without the parents being present. Even in situations
where children are considered old enough to function independently, forcing a separation
is usually counterproductive. At other times it may be advisable to see how the child handles separation from his or her parents. Also, some parents may find it difficult to watch
their child being evaluated. In cases where the clinician wishes to separate parents and
child, he or she will be taking a child to another room and inform them what should happen there.
During the first five minutes of the session, the clinician also needs to set the tone by conveying three messages to the child: Firstly, this place is an OK place – nothing bad will
happen to you here; seconding, you will be asked to do things that you can do, that is,
you will be successful, and thirdly, this experience will be interesting and you will want
to participate. Suggestions for conveying these messages include a brief tour of the therapy or testing room to enable the child to become familiar with the setting and a brief discussion of the planned activities in order to provide reassurance.
During the first five minutes of the session, the child can be shown that a best effort constitutes success irrespective of the actual outcome of the effort. For example, the therapist
can let the child know that he or she has made a successful beginning by rewarding something the child is already doing, such as “Thank you for carrying my bag”. Another example is physically prompting a child with a simple activity such as putting blocks in a box
and rewarding participation with verbal praise or applause. New, more difficult tasks can
then be gradually introduced.
With older children, it can be helpful to present activities from the viewpoint of asking for
assistance rather than demanding performance. In addition to sequencing activities from
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easy to hard, it is also helpful to order tasks from easy to hard; it is also helpful to order
tasks from least interactive to most interactive. In this way, the child begins working with
activities that require a minimal outward response, such as pointing or performing a simple action. Only after children are comfortable with these tasks are they asked to risk
expressing themselves verbally (McFarlane et al., 1984.).
It is also vital to capture the child’s interest in the first few minutes of the session by introducing appealing activities. In this regard it is necessary to consider not only the child’s
cognitive level but also a day-to-day experience, and the current context, for example TV
heroes, fads and fashions. It may also be necessary for the clinician to abandon a professional teaching demeanor and learn to become comfortable playing childlike games and
activities. With children who are reluctant to participate it is often helpful to play a game
alongside the child and let the child choose to join in. Once the child is participating
actively, more structured tasks or formal tests can be introduced.
It can be useful to have a mental repertoire of activities that appeal to different age groups.
For example, children aged 12 – 30 months are usually intrigued with recurrence, such as
peek-a-boo games where the therapist hides an object in a sleeve, looks earnestly for the
object and gasps with delight when it is found. Children in this group like activities where
a doll is put to sleep with much “hushing”, only to jump up and down and giggle until
the therapist puts it to sleep again.
Pre-scholars are interested in daily-care activities, such as combining hair, putting on
shoes, bathing dolls and eating. Most three and four years olds enjoy reprimanding and
disciplining toys that fights or have tantrums. Children of all ages are usually interested in
having their pictures drawn. The clinician can verbally describe the picture as it is being
drawn. Many children enjoy having the therapist draw other objects, for example, animals, spaceships and prehistoric monsters. Older children are often motivated by games
that involve “blowing up” or crossing our spaceships and monsters drawn on paper. For
example, with every correct response, the child is allowed to “shoot down” one of the
clinician’s ships (McFarlane et al., 1984).
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•
Sharing Findings with Clients
According to Strauss (2001: 228), “the informing encounter is a critical moment that is
etched into the memory of parents. How it is conducted and what content it conveys may
determine the expectations that parents bring to raising their child”. In general, It is often
helpful to begin the review of an assessment or medical test results with a comment about
some positive aspect of the client’s performance or test results. For example, “your blood
tests show that there are no problems associated with your kidneys or liver at all. This is a
very positive sign”. If the results are poor and no redeeming points can be found, one
might say, “it is a good thing that we conducted these tests, now we can look at effective
paid management”. Similarly, if a child performs poorly on all assessment tools, one can
always comment on behavior or appearance, for example, “He’s such a cooperative little
boy” or “she has such beautiful hair”.
After mentioning positive aspects, the areas of difficulty can be discussed, for example,
“the cancer has spread to your lungs and curative treatment is no longer a viable option;
however, there are many options available in terms of palliative care” or “Stacey does well
in many areas, but other tasks are difficult for her”. Parents are also generally most receptive when approached in a manner that recognizes their awareness and concern, for
example “you are very perceptive in your concerns about Jane.
After the clinician has presented the evaluation results in terms of what the client can and
cannot do, it is important to obtain feedback from the client and/or parents, for example,
“does what I am telling you tie in with what you see in Heather?” The discussion that is
likely to follow can provide valuable information about the child, the accuracy of the evaluation results, and the meaning of the results to the parents as well as their understanding
of them. It can also provide the opportunity for parents to ask questions and obtain clarification.
Most people come to the diagnostic situation with the knowledge that there is something
wrong, but also with some hope to sustain them. According to Luterman (1996: 78), “it is
the dashing of this hope that is so painful and that initiates the grief reaction”, with its
associated feelings of denial, anger, guilt, bargaining and depression. Consequently, it is
important to reach for feelings, especially after having delivered bad news. People display
their feelings in different ways. Some appear outwardly highly traumatized, while other
people from other cultures try not to show their emotions publicly even though they are
deeply distressed. Although the initial reaction on the part of the professional is to try to
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cheer people up, this response is usually a mistake because it invalidates their feelings.
The message which is then received is that they have no right to feel the way they do. No
matter how seemingly insignificant the client’s medical conditions or disorder to the professional, the feelings of the client and parents need to be respected and not minimized.
Instead, clients and parents need someone who is prepared to listen to them in a nonjudgmental way and not overwhelm them with information, which they usually cannot
absorb at this time.
In the case of denial, it can sometimes be helpful to make a comment to the effect that
the client or parents were probably not expecting this particular finding and it is therefore
very difficult for them to accept such a diagnosis right now. Clinicians who are confronted with angry clients or parents need to consider whether the anger felt towards themselves or the child but is displaced onto the professional, or whether the anger is in fact
justified, for example as a result of the professional’s insensitivity. Instead of becoming
defensive, it is often more helpful to remain calm and to acknowledge the client’s or parent’s anger by saying “You seem to be very upset and angry about my findings”.
Furthermore, anger is not necessarily negative. It can be a natural and necessary feeling
at times and may even facilitate constructive action.
However, sometimes the client or parents actually respond to the diagnosis with a sense
of relief, especially when they had anticipated something far worse, such as mental handicap and are told that the child has a hearing loss or language delay. There is also a feeling of relief that somebody has finally believed them, validated their concerns and given
a name to the child’s deviant behaviors or physical symptoms.
Occasionally, clients or parents seem disinterested and apathetic about their problem. In
some cases this reaction may be due to a lack of understanding of the problem. In other
instances, what appears to be apathy may be a defense against the dismay that the illness
or disorder brings and the confusion that professionals often inspire. It is therefore crucial
that all clients and parents be afforded the opportunity to learn about and contribute to
the evaluation and therapy, and that clinicians provide information using easily understood language free of professional jargon.
In explaining their findings, it is very important that professionals do not overwhelm
clients with too much information, especially when they need to deliver bad news. Health
care professionals need to take time in sharing their findings, preferably with the client
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and a significant other such as a spouse, or with both parents, and give them an opportunity to grieve by allowing time to elapse between the diagnosis and the initiation of rehabilitation or habilitations procedures.
It can also be helpful to give clients or parents the name and telephone number of selfhelp as associations and support groups or parents who have a child with a similar disorder. Arranging a follow-up appointment for a week later can help them feel that they
have not been abandoned, and also gives them time to formulate any questions that might
subsequently arise. At this time they again need to be asked how they are feeling and the
type of information they might need to know.
•
Responding to difficult Questions
McFarlane et al (1984) highlighted the most common questions that clients and parents
tend to ask therapist.
What caused the Problem?
Parents or spouses who feel a need to establish the cause are usually harboring guilt feelings. In some cases it is possible to reassure them that they were not responsible for the
client’s disorder, although reassurance does not always help to dispel feelings of guilt. In
other instances, one needs to acknowledge that one cannot know for sure what causes the
condition and that one has to learn to live with uncertainty.
How long will treatment take and how successful will it be?
Clients and parents should be informed that it is not possible to predict how rapidly a
child will progress or the extent to which medical treatment will be successful in curing
the disease. However, therapists should endeavor to avoid glossing over the seriousness of
the problem or at the other extreme, needlessly discouraging and frightening parents and
patients. It is usually appropriate to stress that a child is developing and can be expected
to show additional growth, even if the progress occurs at a modest rate. In other cases it
may be better to defer discussing the prognosis until the client or child has been involved
in a treatment or remediation programme for a period of time.
Occasionally one finds clients or parents who cling to unrealistic expectations in the face
of overwhelming negative prognostic information. These expectations frequently revolve
around developmental landmarks. For example, for the high risk infant, one such milestone may be the acquisition of first words or the taking of first steps. For the older child,
being able to attend school in a normal educational setting may be seen as the goal. In
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the case of parents of handicapped children, such landmarks may take on tremendous
importance in that they represent normalcy. In this regard, the grieving process may recur
when children reach school and again at puberty. A wait and see attitude will allow parents time to gradually desensitize themselves to the possibility that their child may not
make the gains for which they were hoping. In cases where parents question whether their
child could function in an ordinary nursery school, they should be encouraged to visit the
setting so as to have the chance to make their own comparisons and adjust their expectations. The therapist can then arrange to meet with the parents after the visit to discuss opinions and suggest alternative avenues for therapy. Rather than indicating that a child will
not be able to handle a situation, the clinician might suggest that a particular setting may
not be geared to giving the child the attention needed.
Is my child aphasic, autistic or retarded?
It can be worthwhile spending a few moments explaining the limits of labels and describing the wide range of behaviors that could be encompassed by the term. The therapist can
then briefly review the child’s behaviors and explain why the symptoms might or might
not be grouped under the umbrella of certain label. It might also be noted that children
and labels change and that an assignment of a label should generally be viewed as tentative.
Luterman (1996: 85) summarizes the seven steps needed for a healthy, client centered
diagnostic process:
•
Allow the client and family to tell their story by posing an open-ended question
such as, “What brought you here?”
•
Enlist the family as co-diagnosticians by stating, “Let’s work together, I may be the
expert on testing but you are the expert on the child”.
•
Involve the family and client actively in the testing procedure by giving the client
choices where possible, and asking the family to assist with eliciting responses.
•
Encourage the client and family to participate fully in the diagnosis in order to
empower them and minimize the effects of denial.
•
Allow them to guide you regarding how much information they need to know.
•
Listen and respond to feelings and give clients the opportunity to talk about their
feelings in a caring, unhurried atmosphere.
•
Do not try to cover all aspects in one appointment. Rather try to arrange a followup appointment when you can answer any questions that may have arisen.
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Phase II – the Middle or Work Phase
This phase involves the implementation of plans formulated between the counselor and
the individual client, couple or family, as well as the attainment of goals. The process
begins by discrete actions or tasks. For example if the goal is a better marriage, the subgoals might be fewer fights, doing more things together, and achieving a more equitable
distribution or sharing of household chores.
•
Brainstorming Strategies for Action
Counselors need to help their clients develop a list of concrete, realistic options for action
that will lead to the attainment of the goals set in Phase I of the helping process. If the goal
is to help child develop language, the strategies for achieving this goal might include
speech therapy at a speech and hearing clinic, at a provincial hospital or private speech
therapist, or in a government education school setting or working in language at home.
Coming up with as many ways of achieving a goal as possible increases the probability
that one of them, or a combination of several, will suit the resources of the particular
client.
•
Choosing Strategies and Devising a Plan of Action
Once a number of different options for action have been identified, the client and the
counselor collaboratively need to review them and try to choose either the best single
option or the best combination. “Best” means the single strategy or combination of strategies that best fits the client’s needs, preferences and resources, and that is least likely to
be blocked by factors in the client’s environment. In other words, strategies should be
evaluated in terms of their realism. The options chosen should also be in keeping with the
values of the client. For instances, the child’s attendance of therapy should not interfere
with attendance at religious classes that are important in the cultural context of the family.
•
Implementing Plans and Achieving Goals
Counselors can assist clients in their immediate preparations for action by helping them
foresee difficulties that might occur during the actual implementation of their plans. There
are two extremes that need to be avoided. One is pretending that no difficulties will arise.
The person launches into a plan of action very optimistically, and then runs into various
obstacles and fails. The other extreme is devoting too much time anticipating obstacles
and working out ways of handling them. This may be just another way of delaying the real
work of problem management.
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youth pioneer programme
A reasonable consideration is obstacles that might arise during the implementation of a
plan can be very useful. One way of doing this is to consider the main obstacles or
restraining forces, as well as the facilitating forces. For example, if a person is trying to
improve his or her speech, restraining forces might be fears, anxieties and unrealistic
expectations regarding therapy, having to take time off from work, transport problems, and
negative attitudes towards counseling on the part of family members. Facilitating forces
might be the person’s awareness that speech therapy is improving his or her communication, and encouragement on the part of significant others in the environment.
•
Successfully Terminating Helping Relationships.
Termination tends to evoke ambivalent feelings on the part of clients. On the one hand
they may fee strong gratitude to the counselor, but at the same time they may experience
a sense of relief at no longer having a pay fees or to go through the discomfort associated
with exploring problems and making changes. Although many clients feel optimistic
about the prospect of confronting future challenges independently, they may also experience a sense of loss over ending the relationship with the clinician. In addition, uncertainty about their ability to cope independently is often mixed with feelings of optimism.
Therapist can also provide both support and challenges for clients as they act. For example, when client feel discouraged at the slow progress they are making in therapy, the
counselor can provide emotional support and understanding. Although counselors do not
act for clients, they can enhance their sense of self-efficacy and confidence through
encouragement and by demonstrating their belief that the client can successfully accomplish tasks or perform behaviors associated with specified goals. Finally, the best helpers
are those who maintain an optimism tempered by realism (Egan: 1998).
When clients are involved in a long-term counseling relationship, they sometimes develop a strong attachment to the counselor, especially if he or she has unwittingly fostered
dependency. For such individuals, termination is a painful process of letting go of a relationship that has met significant emotional needs. Moreover, these clients often experience apprehension about facing the future without the reassuring strength represented by
the counselor. Effecting termination with individuals that minimizes psychological stress
requires both perceptiveness to emotional reactions and skills in helping clients to work
through such reactions. It also underlines the need for counselor to develop self-awareness regarding their own needs that might have been met through their clients, such as the
need to repair, the need to be needed and the need to control. Counselors also need to
foster independence in clients by keeping in mind the ultimate aim of all counseling relationships, which is “to work oneself out of a job”. Clinicians also need to prepare clients
for termination; by discussing the impending ending and regularly reminding clients how
many sessions are left.
Phase III – the Ending Phase
The ending phase of the counseling process involves four aspects : assessing when individual and group goals have been satisfactory achieved and planning termination of the
helping relationship, planning for maintenance of change and continued growth following termination and evaluating the results of the counseling process (Hepworth & Larsen,
1993 : 39).
•
Assessing Goal Achievement and planning termination.
Deciding when to terminate the helping relationship is relatively straightforward when
time limits are specified in advance as part of the initial contract. In other instances, however, foals involves growth or changes that have no limits, and the clinician must judge
whether a satisfactory degree of change in the client has been attained, such as having
increased self-esteem, communicating more effectively, being more outgoing in social situations and resolving conflicts more effectively.
•
Planning Change-Maintenance Strategies.
There is a need to develop strategies that maintain change and continue to foster growth
after formal service has been terminated, for example referring clients to support groups.
Evaluating Results
•
The final part of the counseling process is to evaluate results. Through evaluation, counselors can determine the efficacy of the interventions employed and monitor their own
successes, failures and progress in achieving outcomes.
Hepworth and Larsen (1993: 41) maintain that ideally evaluation should not end with termination. Planning for follow-up sessions not only makes it possible to evaluate the durability of results, but also facilitates the termination process by demonstrating the counselor’s continued interest in the client.
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Counseling Skills
“Good counseling technique flows from personality” (Luterman, 1996: 87).
When students initially learn counseling skills, they often complain that these techniques
seem artificial and unnatural. However, as counselors gain more experience and begin to
feel more secure within themselves, the techniques are incorporated into their personalities and the skills then become unconscious. The techniques employed by a counselor will
flow from personality and personal congruence, as well as from a counseling philosophy
that has been incorporated into the way in which the counselor approaches clients
(Luterman, 1996: 87). However, for study purposes, these various micro-skills or techniques needed in order to implement a particular counseling philosophy are discussed
separately.
•
Contracting
In contracting, the assumptions underpinning the counselor-client relationship are made
explicit. The client is required to be explicit in terms of what he or she wants from the
counselor, and the latter needs to make clear what will or will not be done for the client.
Initial sessions are, to a large extent, devoted to contracting. A contract can be verbal and
does not have to be written or legalistic. Basically a contract specifies how long the relationship will last, what it will entails, and the purpose involved. The time issue needs to
be very clear, because limited time can serve as an impetus for clients to work towards
solving their problems. It is particularly important to clarify the issue of expectations in
order to prevent the relationship from deteriorating and anger developing. Finally, at regular intervals, as the therapeutic relationship develops and progresses, time needs to be
set aside to renegotiate the contract if needed.
•
Attending
Carkhuff (1987) maintains that being helped is a process of learning to explore one’s problem situation, learning to understand, and learning to take action. However, before clients
can begin this process of learning, they must become involved in the counseling process.
The problem is that many clients never come for counseling, or drop out of the helping
process prematurely. They either never become involved or do not stay involved. Hence,
the first skills the counselor needs to develop are the “pre-helping skills” required to
involve clients in the helping process.
Involving clients in the helping process entails two separate functions. Firstly, the counselor must communicate real interest and concern in order to get clients to relax and open
up. Secondly, the counselor must develop his or her understanding of where these clients
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are in terms of their own problems and unique frame of reference. In other words, the
helper must put clients at ease and also obtain relevant information needed to understand
their unique situations. In order to achieve these dual purposes, the counselor needs to
utilize basic attending skills. Such skills involve four main areas of activity : preparing,
positioning, observing and listening. Each of these areas is considered separately.
•
Preparing
In order to promote and sustain the attendance of clients, health care professionals need
to use specific attending skills to prepare for a delivery of service. These skills include
informing the client about the counselor’s availability, either regularly or in relation to a
specific situation or set of problems. For example, the therapist is a School of the Deaf can
inform learners that he or she is available if they have any problems related to their speech
or hearing. Alternatively, a counselor can inform Jane that she can come and see him if
she experiences any problems with her new hearing aid.
Some clients are anxious to receive help and only need to be informed about the availability of such help. Others may not even be aware that a potential source of help for their
unique area of concern exists. These people usually react in a far more positive way to a
personal invitation than to an impersonal notice of some kind. A personal invitation –
delivered either verbally or in writing – tells a person that the counselor values him or her
as an individual. This initial contact is vitally important in creating an atmosphere of genuine interest and concern.
The content of an invitation is just as important as the personal manner in which it is delivered. Such an invitation can encourage the attendance of clients if it stresses the specific
benefits that attendance may bring, for example, “if we meet we can discuss ways of dealing with the problems you are having in coping with background noise.”
Once a client or group of clients has made an initial appearance, the counselor needs to
ensure that such appearance is sustained. One way of counselor can prepare for the
client’s first contact is by arranging the helping setting.
Carkhuff (1987) maintains that the best setting for any counseling interaction is one in
which each person can see and hear the other person equally well. In a one-to-one helping situation, the optimal setting usually requires two comfortable chairs places 1, 5-2
meters apart.
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Counselors also need to pay attention to the decorative aspects of the helping setting, for
example pleasant pictures on which clients can rest their eyes, pot plants that absorb
extraneous stimuli and enhance the acoustic environment for hearing impaired persons,
and the availability of appropriate brochures. It is equally important for the counselor to
ensure that the setting does not contain any distracting materials such as files of other
patients, provocative political posters and so forth.
•
Positioning
It has been argued that no individual can avoid a certain amount of non-verbal communication. For example, if one sits hunched over in a chair, one is communicating non-verbally. The counselor can facilitate and subsequently learn from such non-verbal expressions by employing those attending skills that involve positioning: distance, level, angle,
inclination and eye contact.
As mentioned, the optimum distance between client and counselor is 1,5-2 meters in a
one-to-one situation. Staying within this distance enables the counselor to see and hear
all visual cues without infringing on the client’s personal space. The counselor should
endeavor, whenever possible, to take a position that places him or her on the same level
as the client. This position enables the counselor to see that client’s face and communicate a helpful equality rather than the remote superiority of a higher position.
The optimum angle the counselor can take with a client is one that has him or her fully
squared with the client: the counselor’s right shoulder directly across from the client’s left
shoulder and vice versa. In a group situation, the counselor should adopt this position
with each member in turn, demonstrating quite graphically that he or she is genuinely
paying attention. Turning away often succeeds in turning off clients.
Inclination also conveys a great deal about the quality of attending. When therapists lean
back, they put themselves out of reach in visual terms, which indicates unwillingness to
get involved. When seated, counselors should lean forward about 30 degrees until they
can comfortably rest their forearms on their thighs.
Making frequent eye contact is possibly the single most effective way of conveying that
the therapist is with the client, that he or she is really involved and really cares. However,
with certain cultural groups (for example, the African people), eye contact with one’s elders is regarded as inappropriate.
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Egan (1998) uses the acronym “Soler” to summarize the micro skills involved in using
positioning skills:
S
:
Face the client squarely, i.e. adopt a posture that indicates
Involvement.
O
:
Adopt an open posture.
L
:
Remember that it is possible at times to lean towards the other.
E
:
Maintain good eye contact, where culturally appropriate.
R
:
Try to be relatively relaxed while engaging in these behaviors.
•
Observing
Initially the client’s conversation is likely to be superficial, for example involving comments about the weather, and represents a natural transition for the client from simple
appearance and non-verbal expression to the eventual discussion of personally relevant
material. The counselor can facilitate the client’s achievement of this verbal goal through
his or her own non-verbal observing, which continues to express the therapist’s attentiveness and genuine concern.
The counselor observes in order to draw inferences concerning the client’s energy level,
relationship with the counselor and feelings. We observe for energy level, because this
aspect appears to be a good indicator of the client’s potential for new and more constructive action. For example, a low energy level may suggest depression. We observe for cues
concerning the counselor-client relationship, because this aspect enables us to understand
how the client perceives us and the world. Finally, we observe for cues to the client’s feeling states.
Information on any of these three areas may be obtained by focusing on the person’s body
build (i.e. physical appearance in terms of height and weight); posture (i.e. the way the
person holds his or her body); grooming (i.e. mode of dress and level of person is looking
most of the time); and non-verbal expressions (i.e. the various ways in which a person
moves and his or her facial expressions reflect a good deal about what he or she is thinking and feeling). However, different cultural norms express themselves in different ways.
For example, people in Western society indicate agreement by nodding the head up and
down, whereas many people in Asian societies use the same head movement to express
disagreement. Carkhuff (1987) cites the story of a New York city high school principal who
accused a Puerto Rican girl of a particular action and was convicted of her guilt because
she avoided his gaze and instead looked down at the floor. He did not understand that in
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terms of her cultural background, looking an adult in the eyes was something no “good”
Puerto Rican girl would do.
•
Listening
There is a saying that “a good listener is the best physician”. What clients say and how
they say it tells a great deal about how they perceive the world around them. The counselor must also recognize the way in which active listening can facilitate the client’s
expression of personally relevant material.
Counselors listen in order to draw inferences based on the content and tone of personally relevant client expressions. The keys to capturing the content of a client’s statement are
repetition recurring themes and summaries. The key things to listen for are loudness and
softness of the client’s voice, rapidity of speech and any changes in these two indicators.
What is listening? Carl Rogers (as cited in the Life Line, n.d.) describes the essence of listening as follows:
To be of assistance to you I will put aside myself – the self of
ordinary interaction – and enter into your world of perception as completely as I am able.
I will become in a sense, another self for you – an alter ego of your own attitudes and feelings – a safe opportunity for you to discern yourself more clearly, to experience yourself
more truly and deeply, to choose more significantly.
Active listening involves really hearing the words, the meanings and the person. (Rogers
(as cited in Life Line, n.d) maintains that real communication occurs when we listen with
understanding. Acting listening means:to see the expressed idea and attitude from the
other person’s point of view, to sense how it feels to him, to achieve his frame of reference
in regard to the thing that he is talking about. This kind of active listening is the most effective agent we know for altering the basic personality structure of an individual, and
improving his relationships and communications with others. If I can listen to what he tells
me, if I can understand how it seems to him, if I can sense the emotional flavor which it
has for him, then I will be releasing potent forces of change in him.
When adults do not listen to their children because they are too busy or distracted, children may feel that they are not loved. When adults are not listened to, they too may feel
rejected, hurt or resentful. When people tell others that they deny the validity of those
thoughts and feelings. When people seem to hear but distort what the person has said, it
creates feelings of frustration. In all these cases there are barriers.
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People
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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are not listening when they:
Do not care about the person concerned
Say they understand before they know the person well enough
Have an answer for the problem before the person has finished telling them about
the problem
Cut the person off before he or she has finished speaking
Finished the person’s sentence for his or her
Feel critical of the person’s vocabulary, grammar or accent
Are dying to tell the person something
Immediately tell the other person about their experiences, making the other’s
experiences seem trivial and unimportant
Are communicating to someone else in the room
Refuse the person’s thanks by saying that they have not really done anything
In contrast, active listening occurs when people:
•
Try to understand, even if the person is not making much sense
•
Accept the person’s point of view, even if it is against their own convictions
•
Acknowledge that the time taken to listen may have left them tired and drained
•
Allow the person the right to make his or her own decisions
Do not try to take the problem away from people but rather trust them to deal with
•
it in their own way
•
Refrain from giving advice
•
Do not impose words of religious comfort on the person
Give people enough room to discover for themselves what is happening in their
•
worlds
•
Accept the person’s words of gratitude by acknowledging how good it feels to have
been helpful (Life Line, n.d.).
According to Rogers (1951) people cannot know themselves until they have revealed
themselves to another person. There are several benefits to be derived from being accurately listened to and heard. Firstly, there is the feeling of relief from strong physiological
tension. Secondly, there is emotional relief from expressing content that has previously
been denied or suppressed. Thirdly, release of emotional energy tied up with negative feelings often gives one the courage to try to confront one’s problems directly and with
renewed creativity.
Counselors who are able to listen actively are usually able to establish relationships with
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clients characterized by warmth, understanding, caring, acceptance and realness and climate conducive to growth and self-exploration. Having an attitude of acceptance and
unconditional regard for the client required certain basic assumptions:
•
That the individual has infinite worth and dignity
•
That people have the right to make their own decisions about matters that affect
their lives
•
That people have the potential to choose wisely
That people are responsible for their own lives
•
Rogers 91951) believed that the value of being cared for in this accepting manner is that
it is likely to make people more capable of liking and even loving themselves and others.
Classroom exercise
Two students are asked to volunteer to first role play the use of poor attending skills and
thereafter, the use of good attending skills. The persons involved in the role-play then share
their feelings in relation to these two different situations, and the class members give feedback.
Empathic Responding Skills
Probably the most important skills involved in active listening are empathic responding
skills. According to Egan (1998: 73), “empathic listening centers on the kind of attending,
observing, and listening – the kind of being with – needed to develop an understanding
of clients and their worlds”. Empathic responding involves the ability to communicate this
understanding effectively to the client.
Empathic responding skills are used to convey that the counselor is trying to understand
where the person is coming from. It involves responding to content, meaning, feelings
and, finally, feelings and reasons for feelings.
Responding to Content
Hammond, Hepworth and Smith (1977) and Hepworth and Larsen (1993) give the following examples of response leads:
Responding to Meaning
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By using this type of response, counselors convey that they hear not only what the person
is saying but also what he or she means.
Responding to Feelings
Clients express their feelings by the way they move and handle their bodies, the energy
level in their voice, their tone, and the content of their statements. The counselor must be
able to recognize these feelings and respond to them, for the clients’ feelings are the heart
of their experience of the world.
Responding to Feelings and Reasons for Feelings
One could respond in terms of what is implied in the experiences revealed. Hammond,
Hepworth and Smith (1977) and Hepworth and Larsen (1993) also stress the importance
of counselors building up a vocabulary or repertoire of feeling words and phrases. For
example, happiness can be expressed strongly via words such as thrilled, on cloud nine,
“elated”, “on top of the world” and “great”, expressed moderately with words such as
cheerful, light-hearted, and so forth; and mildly via words such as glad, good, satisfied,
pleased and fine. The emotion of confusion can be expressed strongly through words such
as bewildered, baffled and in a quandary, moderately via words such as mixed up, disorganized, lost, going around in circles, flustered, in bind and disturbed and mildly via
words such as uncertain, unsure, bothered and undecided.
Counselors need to select the response, which in terms of content, meaning or feelings
would be most facilitative in the context of the counseling situation. No single response
is necessarily the best one. As Luterman (1996: 94) puts it “There are no right responses,
only different roads to travel”. It is also important to remember that reflection or empathic responding should preferably be couched in tentative terms, for example it seems, possibly, perhaps and so forth. In this way, counselors can convey that they are trying to
understand. If the counselor’s response is inaccurate, the client will usually say so and
then go on to clarify what he or she meant. Students also need to realize that they cannot be expected to be accurate in every instance, and that empathic responding is a skill
that improves with time and experience. A final point is that unfortunately, empathic listening and responding are often abused and can come across as parroting and mechanical in the hands of someone who has learned the form but not the substance of the
humanistic approach” (Luterman, 1996 : 91).
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Classroom Exercises
Students form pairs and role-play the scenarios. They take turns assuming the role of client
and therapist in front of the class. After the exercise participants are encouraged to share
how they felt engaging in this type of activity. Class members are also encouraged to give
feedback.
invitations to do so themselves is a form of confrontation.
These are two basic categories of confrontation: mild and strong. The mild approach
focuses on the situation from the client’s own frame of reference. A mild confrontation of
this sort is only minimally threatening to the client. Yet it does focus on a discrepancy or
element of contrast.
Communicating with Immediacy
Immediacy of expression makes the client’s understanding more real because it involves
an understanding of what is happening then and there with the helper. Secondly, the client
learns something about effective communication by being presented with a model, namely the counselor who is able to communicate fully and accurately. Once the skilled therapist has identified the client’s present feelings and focused on specific verbal or behavioral cues he or she can respond with immediacy by using some variation of the basic format:
•
Right now with me you feel … because you … For example, right now you
feel miserable because you cannot even trust me when I seem to understand you
•
I get the feeling that you are not very happy because I am telling you things you
do not want to hear.
A direct confrontation stresses external and observable data. Here the format is usually a
on “you say/feel/do … but it looks to me like you say/feel/do …”
Carkhuff (1987) advises counselors not to use confrontation when there is an alternative
approach when there is an alternative approach that promises the client gains, and not to
confront a client directly when a mild confrontation might work just as well.
An example used of the use of immediacy occurred when a supervisor sensed that a student was dissatisfied with the way she was being supervised. The supervisor endeavored
to deal with the situation by bringing these feelings out into the open, acknowledging
them and encouraging their expression. She used the skill of immediacy by saying, “I get
the feeling that you are not happy with the way I have been supervising you”. The student
immediately agreed and broke down in tears. In this way emotional energy was released
and the supervisor and student were then able to jointly discuss alternative supervisory
strategies that were acceptable to both parties.
Confrontation
According to Egan (1986 : 22) confrontation focuses on the discrepancies, distortions,
evasions, games, tricks, excuse making and smokescreens in which clients involve themselves, but keep them mired in their problem situations. The purpose is not to strip people of their defense mechanisms, but rather to motivate them to recognize those things
that are preventing them from handling problem situation effectively. More recently Egan
(1998: 148) preferred to use the term challenge rather than confrontation. He maintains
that challenging clients to change their attitudes and behaviors after they have rejected
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By working for an achieving a real degree of personalized understanding, clients can put
themselves back into the picture. Instead of blaming things on some external factor, they
can hopefully understand how they themselves have a role in the overall situation, and
how their own actions and limitations have contributed to their problems in the past.
Once clients have achieved such understanding, they can set personalized goals for themselves – the necessary prelude to taking action to reach these goals.
Probes, prompts and Questions
Thus far we have discussed how counselors can respond empathetically to their clients
when the latter reveal themselves. However, it is also necessary at times to encourage or
prompt clients to explore problems situations when they seem reluctant to do so spontaneously. It is also important not to stick too rigidly to case history forms that focus on specific areas.
Statements that Encourage Clients to Talk and to Clarify
Prompts and probes do not necessarily take the form of questions. Too many questions can
give a client the feeling of being “grilled”. Instead, statements and requests can be used
to help clients talk and clarify issues. An angry person who comes to the clinic and just
sits there fuming.
Questions that help clients talk more freely and concretely
When clients are asked too many questions, it can interfere with the rapport between
them and the counselor. Turning questions into statements can help, because statements
are gentler forms of probes. However, even probing statements should not be overused.
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If you feel that a question is called, try to ask an open-ended question that is questions
that require more than a simple one-word answer. Another possibility is to have clients
asked relevant questions of themselves. Questions can also be useful when you are not
following what the client is saying. Why questions should be used sparingly because they
tend to make the interview sound like an interrogation. In considering the use of other
types of questions, it is helpful to remember the rhyme by Rudyard Kipling:
I kept six honest serving men
They taught me all I knew
Their names were what and why and when
And how and where and who.
youth pioneer programme
Classroom Exercises
Students use role-play to explore particular problem situations with clients. For example,
explore the reasons why a mother has brought her child in for an assessment.
In order to illustrate the value of using open-ended questions versus closed-ended questions, the class is invited to participate in a game. One volunteer thinks of the name of a
famous film star, singer, sports person or politician. The rest of the class is required to ask
questions in order to ascertain the person’s identity. However, they are only allowed to ask
questions that elicit closed-ended answers in the form of yes or no. Once they have discovered the name of the person, the game is repeated, but this time class members may
ask open-ended questions.
The counter-question can also be a very valuable counseling skill and teaching strategy,
as it forces people to use their own resources. According to Luterman (1996: 91) the professional can move the therapeutic relationship beyond the initial stages by not always
answering questions and supplying content.
Skilled Use of Silence
Many student therapist find silence hard to bear and feel that it must be broken immediately. However, with time one learns to differentiate between different kinds of silence and
to react to them differently.
The Accent
The accent is a one or two word restatement that focuses or brings attention to a preceding client response. For example, the client might say, I am not altogether satisfied with
my child’s progress in therapy”. The counselor could then respond, “Not altogether satisfied?” in this case the accent or stress on the words “not altogether satisfied” is aimed at
helping the client to say more fully what he or she is only half saying.
Firstly, there is the silence that the client may need to sort out his or her thoughts and feelings. Respect for this silence is often more beneficial than any words from the interviewer. However, if the silence endures, one could possibly interject a remark like “I can see
by the expression on your face that there’s a lot going on inside you; I wonder if you feel
ready to share some of it with me”.
Minimal Prompts
These include such things as “uh-huh”, “mm”, “yes”, “I see”, “ah” and “oh”, which often
serve as reinforces or prompts and encourages the client to explore further.
Minimal prompts can also be non-verbal such as nodding the head or leaning forward.
These types of minimal interventions on the part of the counselor can help clients to use
their own initiative to clarify what they mean. Egan (1998) emphasizes the probes and
prompts should not be overused. If a probe helps a client reveal relevant information, it
should be followed up with a basic empathic response rather than another probe.
A silence may arise after the client has related something heart-warming, tragic, shocking
or frightening and both the counselor and client need to absorb it in mutual silence. After
such a silence the therapist can make a comment such as “It must have been a devastating experience for you”.
Confusion can also lead to silence and in this case the shorter the silence the better. For
example “What I said just now seems to have confused you. What I meant was ….”
A different type of confusion may occur when the client does not know what to do next.
For example “I see you do not know where to begin. Perhaps we could start by talking
about when Jane first began to stutter”.
Then there is the silence of resistance. Showing the client that one can accept this form of
resistance may help break the silence.
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Then there is a brief silence or short pause during which the client may be searching for
more thoughts and feelings, or ways of expressing them. In this case it is usually best not
to rush but to wait a bit. Other suggestions of dealing with silence include the following
comments: “I can see you find it difficult to continue. I wonder if your silence is connected with anything I’ve said”, “I do not quite know what to make of this silence. Perhaps
there is something you find difficult to put into words” or “It’s often difficult for people to
talk about how they really feel”.
Termination silence usually occurs towards the end of a group or individual session when
the work for that day has been completed. In such instances it may be beneficial to ask
“Is there anything else you wish to say or any questions you’d like to ask?”
Silence can also be related to the client’s culture. For example, it may be culturally appropriate for the client to remain silent and let the counselor take the initiative.
A final point is that talking can be used as a smokescreen to hide feelings, but silence
often forces a person to hide feelings, but silence often forces a person to comfort self and
to experience feelings” (Luterman, 1996 : 103). If silence is utilized meaningfully, it can
be highly therapeutic. Clients can gain the experience of being really listened to and
understood.
Brainstorming and Problem Solving
Brainstorming simply means helping clients to develop a number of concrete, realistic
options for action that will lead to the achievement of their goals or objectives.
Information sharing
It is important to distinguish between giving information and giving advice. Information
refers to knowledge on the basis of which people can make informed decisions. Giving
advice involves telling people what you think they should do. Luterman (1996: 90) states
“Giving advice rarely works: A wise man does not learn from it”. Consequently, counselors need to learn professional humility and to recognize their own limitations in order
to refrain from giving advice.
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Counselors and therapists are often called upon to deliver bad news, for example, inform
parents that their child have been diagnosed as having disability or disorder. Hence, it is
important to ensure that this information is disclosed in privacy. That both parents are present if at all possible, and that we avoid the use of professional jargon without oversimplifying. It can be helpful to provide examples such as drawing attention to the fact that the
child said “wed” instead of “red”. It is also critical to explain concepts according to the
educational level of the client. One can explain the audiogram to a sound engineer in
terms of decibels and frequency hertz, whereas one could use analogies of birds singing,
trucks traveling down a road or an airplane flying overhead to demonstrate different sound
intensities and frequencies to someone without an acoustic background. A further point is
that it is often difficult for people to absorb information after hearing had news. For this
reason, it is important not to bombard people with information surrounding the diagnosis, prognosis and types of interventions immediately after giving bad news. Also it may
necessary to repeat much of the information several times after the initial diagnosis.
Making Referrals
•
When to refer
There are no clear cut guidelines as to when a health can professional should refer a client
to another practitioner. However, there is an ethical injunction to render only those services for which one is qualified and has been trained. According to Crowe (1997: 25),
Clinicians should be careful not to exceed their professional boundaries in counseling
with clients not attempt to employ helping skills that they do not fully comprehend how
and when to use”. It is also acceptable to refer the client to another professional if the
topic or area of concern s beyond one’s comfort zone. For example, if the person brings
up issues related to incest, sexual abuse and so forth, and the counselor feels uncomfortable dealing with these aspects, the person may be referred. However, one’s comfort zone
is not necessarily static, and subjects that one regards as sensitive or threatening during
the early stages of one’s professional career may change with time and additional experience.
•
What it means to a client to be referred
There are both negative and positive connotations. On the one hand, it may mean rejection or failure, that they have even more problems to be treated, being passed on to yet
another professional as the previous one also did not help, and increasing hopelessness.
Clients may already be seeing a host of health care professionals and referral to additional ones might possibly add logistic complications to their daily routines and increase their
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financial concerns (Crowe, 1997: 26). If the person is being referred to a psychologist or
psychiatrist, there could also be feelings of stigma and fears of madness. If the person is
severely communicatively impaired, a referral may be perceived as tokenism, because the
client may feel that he or she can only communicate with the speech and hearing therapist and that attempts to communicate with others will fail. Consequently, clients in this
position may say they are going, but upon follow-up one learns that they have not gone.
On the other hand, a referral can also signify how and a fresh start or that at last the real
problem is being recognized (Beckett, 2002).
•
Symptoms that suggest the need for a referral
The person may present with severe depression to the extent that he or she is immobilized
or on the verge of being immobilized. The counselor has a sense that it is difficult to reach
the person and he or she displays little or no energy and tends to be very listless and/or
negative.
Talk of suicide should always be taken seriously. In such instances one may need to consider whether it would be advisable to alert family members. Although such action may
be a breach of confidentiality, it may also be unethical for the counselor not to inform the
family.
Other symptoms suggesting the need for referral are atypically liable or intense emotions,
bizarre behavior, including hallucinations and delusions, as well as withdrawal, incoherence extreme irrationality, and extreme temper outbursts. Many client exhibits acting-out
behavior, for example going on food binges, driving too fast, or experimenting with drugs.
However, then the counselor feels that this type of behavior could potentially harm the
person concerned or others, he or she may need to consider whom to alert and weigh this
decision against the consequences of breaches of confidentiality and loss of trust. In such
instances it may be preferable to try to counsel such clients to accept the need for help
rather than “report” them.
In cases of suspected battering and abuse, it is often extremely difficult to be absolutely
sure that such behavior is indeed occurring unless the person tells one directly. However,
if there are repeated examples that appear to confirm one’s suspicious, it may be helpful
to refer the person to a community nurse or social worker.
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Where marital difficulties emerge, it is important to try to assess why the person is telling
one about these issues. If the problems are related to the disorder being dealt with, such
as aphasia or traumatic brain injury, one could possibly counsel around the disorder. For
example one could focus on ways of enhancing communication between the marital partners. It is also necessary to consider whether both partners are seeking help. If not, it may
be better to keep the one who is acknowledging the problem in supportive therapy rather
refer out, because they will probably not go as a couple (Beckett, 2002).
•
How to refer
Referrals should only be made after counselors have explored this option with their clients
and they fully understand why they are being referred. It is also important first to check
that the professional to whom one is referring the client has a vacancy and that he or she
does not in fact deal with the type of problem presented by the client. Ideally, one should
provide details about the professional but clients themselves should phone for an appointment. The referral should be expressed in positive terms. For example, “This person has
the expertise and can help you more than I can” rather than “you have a problem/I am
worried/I cannot help you”. It is also important to convey concern rather than anxiety
(Beckett, 2002).
A final point is that if one is planning to send a report to the professional to who the client
is being referred; permission should first be obtained from the client. In addition, a good
rule of thumb is to only include information that one would not mind being read by the
client.
•
Concretizing Experiences, behaviors and Feelings
Concretizing involves spelling out a problem or unused opportunity in terms of specific
experiences, specific behaviors and specific feelings in specific situations. For example, if
the teacher describes Johnny as being “impossible” at school, one needs to probe what
she means by “impossible” in terms of specific behavior that occurs under specific conditions.
Focusing and Summarizing
•
Focusing and summarizing are helpful, especially during or after a long counseling or
group work session, and involve tying the pieces together, for example, :Let me see if I
have the main points you’ve been making …” The therapist can do the summarizing or
alternatively one could ask the client to summarize the principal points discussed. This
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WORKING WITH FAMILIES
strategy places pressure on the client to focus and move on. Focusing is important when
individuals or groups have gone off on a tangent. Summarizing is particularly helpful
when the therapist experiences difficulty terminating a session.
Conclusion
Client behavior is probably the ultimate criterion by which to judge the effectiveness of
any counseling relationship and counseling skills.
With time and help, the feelings transform into productive behavior. The anger becomes
energy to make changes, the guilt becomes commitment. The confusion is the spur to
learning and the vulnerability becomes the impetus to reshuffle values.
References
Beckett. G. (2002). Clinical Psychologist: Personal Communication.
Carkhuff, R.R. (1987). The Art of Helping. Amherst: Human Resource Development Press.
Crowe, J.A. (1997). Approaches to Counseling. Baltimore: Williams and Wlkins.
Egan, G. (1986). The Skilled Helper: A Systematic Approach to Effective Helping. Pacific
Grove CA: Brookes/Cole.
Egan, G. (1998). The Skilled Helper: A Problem Management Approach to Helping.
Pacific Grove CA: Brookes/Cole.
Hepworth, D.H. & Larsen, J.A. (1993). Direct Social Work Practice: Theory and Skills.
Pacific Grove, CA: Brookes Cole.
Life Line: The Carl Rogers Programme: Volunteer Counseling Training Manual:
Unpublished Manuscript, Life Line, South Africa.
Mcfarlane, S.C. Fujiki, M. & Brinton, B. (1984). Coping with Communicative Handicaps:
Resources for the Practicing Clinician. San Diego: College Hill Press.
Strauss, R.P. (2002). Only Skin Deep: Health, Resilience and Craniofacial Care: Cleft
Palate-Craniofacial Journal, 38 (3) 226-230.
McConkey, R. (1985). Working with Parents: A Practical Guide for Teachers and
Therapists. London: Croom Helm
Introduction
This module is about working with families; its scope includes the following aspects: definition of the family, components of the family, family subsystems, the family cycle, using
genograms to map family patterns, resistance to family genograms, steps in implementing
family focused interventions, conclusion and discussion questions.
Definition of a family
Baker (1999:166) defines family as a primary group whose members assume certain obligations for each other and generally share common residences. The NASW Commission
on Families defined a family as two or more people who consider themselves family and
who assume obligations, functions and responsibilities generally essential to healthy family life. Child care and child socialization, income support and other care giving are
among the functions of family life.
The concept of family is further differentiated into nuclear and extended family notions.
A nuclear family is defined as a family that consists of husband, wife and their biological
child/ren; an extended family is defined as a family that is beyond the nuclear family, it
includes relatives such as aunts, uncles, grandparents nieces and nephews.
Components of Family Life
According to Seligman (1999), there are four components of the family interactional system: cohesion, adaptability, communication and sub-system.
Cohesion can be illustrated by the concepts of “enmeshment” and “disengagement”.
Highly enmeshed families have weal boundaries between subsystems, with the result that
family members can become over involved and overprotective (Minuchin, 1974) and
independence and individuality are discouraged. On the other hand, disengaged families
have rigid subsystem boundaries and interactions are characterized by under involvement
and lack of support for individual members. Well-functioning families tends to demonstrate a balance between enmeshment and disengagement, and members experience a
feeling of close bonding as well as a sense of autonomy Seligman, (1999).
Adaptability is the family’s ability to change and adapt in response to stressful events.
Whereas chaotic families are characterized by instability and inconsistent change, rigid
families face great difficulty in adjusting to the demands of caring for a child with special
needs.
Communication occurs within the family interactional system, and communication breakdown reflects a problematic system rather than faulty people. Hence, in working with
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families, the focus is on changing patterns of interaction rather than on changing individuals (Seligman, 1999).
Family Subsystems
Within the family, the following subsystems can be identified: the marital subsystem (husband and wife), the parental subsystem (parents and children, including children of disabled parents), the sibling subsystem (child and child), the grandparent subsystem and the
extended family. Each of these subsystems is described below.
The Marital Subsystem
Luterman (1996:136) postulates the notion that marriage involves a “contract” comprising
a set of expectations and promises that may or may not be shared with the spouse. In most
cases the contract is implied and not verbalized. The marital partners enter the relationship with separate contractual expectations and then need to work towards developing a
single joint marital contract. The early conflicts that many couples experience are usually part of a healthy process of forging the joint contract.
Conflict often occurs when there is contractual disappointment. Although partners take
the marriage vow “to love and to cherish in sickness and in health”, no one rally expects
to deal with severe long-term disability in a spouse. When a spouse becomes disabled
through a severe hearing loss, stroke and so forth, the contract appears to have been broken. Spouses usually feel intense anger; they also grieve for their lost dreams of a socalled perfect marriage, and may feel guilty that they somehow caused the disability.
Feelings of intense loneliness are also common due to the loss of a marital partner with
whom they planned to share their life. People also generally tend to marry someone
whose qualities complement theirs. Although disability does not usually lead to personality change, spouses often grieve for the loss of the person they knew and loved prior to
the onset of the disabling condition.
At the time of the initial diagnosis or early signs of the disability disease, the family usually experiences a crisis, which brings family members together. Later, when family members realize that the disability or condition is permanent, long term and chronic, feelings
of anger, resentment and disappointment tend to emerge and serve as divisive factors in
many families. However, although many marriages break down and end in divorce as a
result of the disability in a spouse, others are strengthened by the experience. Yet others
remain intact despite the additional stress experienced. For example, Farber (as cited in
Luterman, 1996) found marital conflict to be common, especially in families with a men-
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tally handicapped boy aged nine or above. Patterson (1991) reported that families with
children with disabilities did not experience problems more frequently than comparison
families, while Schwab (1989) found that some marriages improved after the diagnosis of
the child’s disability. One consequence of divorce is that one or both parents from the
original family may remarry. Under these changed circumstances, new rules and roles
need to be adopted, loyalty issues to biological and non-biological parents need to be
negotiated, new lines of authority need to be established, and financial responsibilities
may need to be reconsidered. When a blended or reconstituted family contains a disabled individual, care giving and responsibility issues also need to be negotiated
(Seligman, 1999).
By supporting, educating and involving the non-affected spouse in therapy and diagnosis,
therapists can help to create a home that is facilitative for the client. Healthy spouses need
to be listened to in a non-judgmental environment and encouraged to ventilate their feelings of anger. Therapists also need to introduce spouses to support groups, where their
loneliness can be alleviated to some extent (Ross & Deverell 2005).
Minuchin (1974:83) maintains that parenting is essentially an impossible task – it is “an
extremely difficult task that no one performs to his entire satisfaction and no one goes
through the process unscathed”. All parents are confronted with the chronic dilemma of
deciding how much control they should retain and how much freedom they should give
to their children. Parents need to gradually cede control to the child, but it is often very
difficult to decide when to release control. Control that is ceded too early or too late generally has the same result, namely a fearful, low-risk child. The problem is that there is a
relatively small margin of control within which the parents can work. If the child is disabled, the margins are limited even further.
According to Satir (1976), the marital relationship affects parenting. Those parents who
are close and supportive of each other and have a satisfying marriage are generally better
able to cope with their parental responsibilities. Conversely, when parents are not close
emotionally, the child often gets “triangulated” into the marriage. Under these circumstances the child may develop psychosomatic symptoms in order to “save” the parental
marriage. Triangulation often occurs when children are born with disabilities.
Luterman (1996:140-141) states that the triangle consisting of the parents and the child is
frequently observed in preschool programmes. As the father often maintains his distance
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from the family, programmes generally try to strengthen the father-child bond by encouraging the father’s involvement in the programme. Usually attempts to involve the father
either fail completely or only succeed temporarily before the father resumes his distant
behavior. The professional may try other tactics to involve the father or, alternatively, enter
into a subtle coalition with the mother that further excludes and alienates the father.
In families with distant fathers, mothers are often closely bonded to their children to the
extent that they do not want the father involved, despite their protestations to the contrary.
In some cases a mother might have unresolved feelings of guilt and feel that it is her
responsibility to repair the damage. Furthermore, working with a disabled child can help
some mothers to realize their self-worth and gain confidence in their ability to do the job
well. The child not only gives joy, but also provides direction and meaning to their lives.
Often a father feels insecure and incompetent in relation to the child, and the mother
either consciously or unconsciously excludes or intimidates him (Ross & Deverell 2005).
Often the presence of a child with disability adversely affects the marital relationship. If
the mother becomes over invested in the child, she often has very little energy left for the
marriage. When the father derives little satisfaction from the marriage, he may end up
seeking that satisfaction elsewhere, usually in his work. As he becomes more involved in
his work, the mother tends to become more involved with the child and in this way a
vicious circle is set up (Ross & Deverell 2005).
In some cases, the father’s physical and emotional distance from the child with a disability becomes the club or weapon that the wife wields over her husband. Luterman (1996)
cautions professionals to be on their guard against being caught up in an unholy alliance
with the mother against the father by offering support to the mother for doing things alone.
It is also important to bear in mind that some families can function quite successfully
despite having a distant father. For example, the father does not become directly involved
in the child’s therapy but nevertheless is emotionally supportive and takes over some of
the mother’s household chores while she is at the child’s school. In other families, the
withdrawal of the father tends to place further burdens and restrictions on the mother, who
in turn may increase her sense of resentment at having to abandon her own dreams and
aspirations (Seligman & Darling, 1997).The father’s distant role may also be related to the
family’s cultural values.
The emotions that arise from having a child with a disability are usually very intense and
tend to disrupt the organization of the family. Anger is a common emotion and can be
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potentially destructive to the marriage. Many couples do not recognize their anger, while
others repress it and it may then subsequently emerge as depression. Much of the anger
is also displaced onto professionals. Guilt that is not recognized or dealt with satisfactorily can also be potentially destructive to a marriage. Guilt often precipitates a search
through the family trees to discover some relative, preferably on the other side of the family, who may have carried the defective gene related to the child’s condition. A phenomenon commonly associated with guilt is the “superdedicated” parent who is determined
to devote his or her life to the child with a disability, usually at the expense of the rest of
the family. In the process the husband-wife relationship is neglected, as are the siblings.
Under these circumstances the child with a disability can consume an inordinate amount
of energy, resulting in the parent ignoring his or her own needs and the entire family structure being affected.
Husbands usually assume the role of family protector, and when a family member is in
pain about which they can do nothing, they tend to feel responsible. They often react with
denial, refusing to talk about their feelings. They may also try unsuccessfully to distract
their wives from the pain by trying to cheer them up, and unconsciously they may be trying to make themselves feel better. According to Seligman and Darling (1997), having a
child with a disability is a profound challenge for fathers who subscribe to male values of
needing to be in charge, to be stoical and to make things better for their wives.
Consequently, many fathers may suffer more than their spouses after learning that their
child has a disability (Seligman, 1995). For this reason, it is important for professionals to
try to release the husband from the role of protector and to encourage both partners to talk
about their feelings and grieve. Men also need to be taught that it is OK to cry and that
it is not necessarily a sign of weakness.
In addition, fathers seldom receive or seek emotional support. Invariably most support
seems to be directed towards the mother. Nevertheless, many fathers need to be listened
to and encouraged to talk about their feelings. Because some men find it difficult to talk
about feelings, it may be helpful to involve them in group work that initially deals with
structured content and later focuses on emotional aspects. In groups with couples it can
be beneficial to include intense husband-wife encounters where each couple goes off into
a corner of the room and takes turns telling each other what they appreciate about the
other person (Ross & Deverell 2005)..
A child with a disability may precipitate many changes in the family structure the husband-wife relationship is often altered; wives may have to postpone career aspirations,
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and economic hardships may be experienced. The family is often compelled to make difficult choices, and plans frequently hinge on the availability of schooling facilities. Often
the mother acquires more information about the disorder as a result of her involvement
with the educational programme, and is therefore in a better position to make decisions
regarding the child’s future than the father is, with the result that he may feel excluded.
Under these circumstances it is not surprising that some marriages founder due to intense
friction and the lack of love, communication or commitment between the parents. It is
also important for counselors to mediate between separated parents and to involve them
in family intervention programmes (Kissman &Tunney, 2001).
Luterman (1996:145) points out that it is presumptuous to think that by working two or
three hours a week with only the child, therapists can effect drastic changes. They can be
more effective in helping the child by spending time with the parents, empowering them,
and altering the family environment.
Moreover, although the presence in the family of a child with a disability creates stress,
there may also be significant positive outcomes. Professionals who approach families
with sensitivity can help them to achieve these positive outcomes. Luterman (1996:147)
maintains that it is important to teach parents that if they want to take good care of their
child and not burn out in the process, they need to start by taking good care of themselves.
Children of disabled parents
Adolescent children of parents with a disability often become “parentified” and are compelled to assume adult responsibilities much earlier than their peers. For these young people, role reversal occurs and the normal crisis of adulthood is accelerated. They have to
deal with parental incompetence at an age when they might not have developed the emotional maturity needed for their new roles. If there was strength in the family to begin
with, then the child can usually survive, flourish and become a mature and responsible
young person. However, in weaker family systems, the children and family itself may not
be able to come through the process without considerable scarring (Ross & Deverell
2005).
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The person in the family who generally tends to be designated as the caregiver is usually
the eldest female that is the mother or daughter. The effect of parental chronic illness in
adult children who have left home varies, depending on the child’s role in the family and
the degree of physical and emotional attachment between parent and child (Ross &
Deverell 2005).
A typical example of chronic illness is dementia. This condition causes psychological
death long before physical death, and strikes at the very core of the person’s humanity,
altering his or her personality and intelligence. There are no rituals to help the family
members as they mourn the loss of the person’s former self. It is also a constant struggle
for family members to try to keep alive the memories of the way the person used to be. It
is also a very difficult decision for families to institutionalize a parent with dementia. They
often experience guilt and feel that they are failing in their responsibilities towards the person. From an economic perspective, many families cannot afford to place a family member in a nursing home and they therefore attempt to care for the person at home for as
long as possible. It is not surprising that caregivers frequently experience depression and
exhaustion (Ross & Deverell 2005).
Possibly the ultimate act of childhood is burying one’s parents. However, for children of
disabled parents, it is not always clear when the death takes place because, as mentioned,
psychological death often occurs long before physical death (Luterman, 1996).
The Sibling Subsystem
Sibling relationships are often the longest and most enduring of family relationships. As
Powell and Gallagher (1993:126) put it: “Siblings provide a continuing relationship from
which there is no annulment”. The sibling system is very important in teaching children
the social skills of how to resolve conflict, how to be supportive, how to make friends and
allies, and how to achieve recognition for one’s skills. The sibling system also teaches
children to negotiate, cooperate and compete for a position within the family. These experiences shape and mould children into their adult roles and help them establish peer relationships (Minuchin, 1974). In some families this relationship is strong while in others it
is weak. Furthermore, under certain circumstances, siblings bond and become each
other’s protectors, while in other situations they tend to be rivals, particularly in response
to differential treatment on the part of parents (McGoldrick &Gerson, 1985). For these
reasons, family-based therapy encourages sibling participation, peer interaction and the
development of independence (Andrews, 1986).
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Grossman (1972) interviewed 83 college students who had siblings with developmental
delay. The vast majority (90 per cent) reported being affected by these siblings. Older sisters were the most affected, as they were expected to help with child-rearing activities and
took over many parental functions. The effects on siblings were both negative and positive. Grossman (1972) noted the following negative consequences:
•
Embarrassment about the disabled sibling
•
Guilt about enjoying good health in contrast with the sibling
Worry about carrying a defective gene and bearing disabled children themselves
•
•
Guilt at harboring negative feelings towards the disabled sibling.
•
Resentment at being neglected by the parents
•
A feeling of having lost their own childhood through having to assume adult
responsibilities at an early age
A belief that the mentally disabled child had placed stress on the parental
•
relationship, which exerted a negative impact on the rest of the family
system, professionals are working with the sibling system.
Non-disabled siblings of children with special needs appear to be differentially affected.
Furthermore, Luterman (1966:156) believes that there is not disorder-specific response
and that most siblings tend to respond in similar ways, depending on the cues they receive
from parents.
In addition to these factors, Seligman and Darling (1997) found that some siblings
believed that their lives were “on hold” while they and their families tended to the needs
of the ill or disabled family member. Furthermore, ambiguity about a child’s disability
often evokes fears and anxieties about the transmissibility of the condition, its duration,
whether it is a taboo subject in the confines of the family, and whether the health sibling
may have caused the disability. Adult siblings may worry about care giving duties as they
and their disabled siblings enter middle and old age. Some siblings also wonder whether
a prospective spouse will accept brother or sister with a disability (Seligman & Darling,
1997).
Israelite (1986) administered self-report questionnaires to 14 hearing female adolescents
who were older sisters of hearing-impaired children, and a matched control group of 14
adolescents who had non-disabled siblings. The two groups differed significantly only in
terms of self-concept identify and social self, suggesting that the experimental group
defined themselves not only as individuals in their own right but also as sisters of hearing
–impaired children.
A final point regarding siblings of disabled children is that they need to be given the
opportunity to discuss their feelings of anger and guilt, either through individual counseling or support groups for persons struggling with similar issues. It is important for parents
to spend quality time with their non-disabled children, rather than try to devote equal
amounts of time to all the children in the family. However, if they do not have the emotional energy to do this, grandparents can be very helpful.
The Grandparent Subsystem
Grandparents are present in every family, irrespective of whether or not they are physically present or actively involved. People carry their families of origin into their new nuclear
families because notions of what constitutes marriage and parenthood stem from childhood experiences observed within one’s own family. Ideas regarding what is normal and
appropriate often reflect the values of our parents and grandparents. Most people either
tend to imitate their parents or try to be different from them. With time and experience,
images from the past give way to roles and responsibilities based on personal experiences
(Ross & Deverell 2005).
Positive consequences for siblings were as follows:
•
Better understanding of people in general, especially persons with disabilities
•
More compassion
Appreciation of their own health and abilities
•
•
Greater sensitivity regarding prejudice and discrimination
•
A sense that the experience had bonded the family more closely
•
A sense of vocational purpose and direction (e.g. siblings may become teachers of
children with special needs or interpreters for the Deaf community
Grossman (1972) also found that the more open the parents were in talking about and
accepting the child’s disability, the easier it was for the non-disabled child to come to a
healthy acceptance. The implication of this finding is that by working with the parental
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Schwirian (1976) cited in Ross & Deverell (2005) interviewed 29 mothers from families
containing a preschool-aged child with a hearing impairment who had older siblings and
a control group of 28 mothers from families with only non-disabled children. She found
that older non-disabled siblings of hearing-impaired children had greater childcare
responsibilities and engaged in fewer social activities than the older siblings in the control group. Sisters had great childcare and overall responsibilities than brothers.
However, a methodological weakness of this study was that Schwirian interviewed only
the mothers and not the siblings themselves.
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Grandparenthood is that phase of one’s life when one can parent one’s grandchildren
without having the responsibilities of a mother or father. This relationship is probably the
only one where the child can receive unconditional love. Closely connected grandparents can function as mentors, caregivers, mediators between the child and parents, sex
role models, and family historians (Ross & Deverell 2005).
However, grandparents can also bring stress into the home. For example, they may lack
information about the child’s disorder and may lag behind the parents in accepting the disability. Some grandparents have difficulty accepting their disabled grandchild and react
by distancing themselves from the parents, by trivializing the disability, or by denying it
(Meyer & Vadasy, as cited in Seligman, 1999). Grandparents who demonstrate negative
reactions or side with one parent can cause triangulation or breakdown between the generations. Role reversal may occur where parents need to parent their own parents by providing information and support. Guilt and resentment may be experienced when parents
realize that having a child with a disability is causing their own parents pain instead of
bringing them joy. In these situations, professionals can play a critical role in helping parents and grandparents to share their feelings (Ross & Deverell 2005).
Nevertheless, the impact of a child with a disability of the parent-grandparent relationship
does not necessarily have to be negative. Grandparents can be an important source of
instrumental and emotional support. For example, they can provide respite care through
babysitting and also be surrogate parents to the other siblings when parents are overwhelmed with the initial diagnosis or subsequent demands of coping with a child with a
disability (Ross & Deverell 2005).
The Extended Family
In South Africa and many other African countries, it is common for the notion of “family”
to extend past that of the unclear family. In South Africa, the practice of migrant labor was
very common under the apartheid regime and children were often left in the care of their
grandparents as their parent sought work in city centers. The extended family provides a
primary support function, a social “safety net” that has remained resilient over the years.
Older children are expected to be involved in domestic work and childcare of younger
siblings. Hence, when a parent becomes sick, children adapt readily to care giving roles
with support from relatives. Family structures are in place that provides a reasonable
degree of care, support and socialization to the sick and disabled. The extended family
thus helps mitigate the psychological impact of illness and disability (Foster, 1997).
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In South Africa today, there is increasing evidence that the extended family network is
becoming overburdened with the care of the sick and is in serious danger of collapsing.
The event responsible for this demise is the proliferation of HIV/Aids. It has been suggested by the government and the media alike that the burden of care for children orphaned
by HIV/Aids would not fall to the state, as these children would be absorbed by the
extended family network. It was even suggested that the impact of Aids would lead to the
strengthening of the central role of the family, as no evidence could be found of children
being looked after by someone who was not a close family relation (Foster, 1997). This
was certainly true in the beginning of the epidemic when numbers of orphans were low
enough for this to happen successfully. Today, however, the number of HIV orphans has
increased so dramatically that the extended family network is starting to crumble.
Extended family networks cannot be assumed to remain resilient in the face of overwhelming numbers of orphans, shrinking numbers of potential caregivers, and overstretched financial and other resources (Nelson Mandela’s Children’s Fund, 2001). In
many cases the burden of care is falling to they very old, who themselves have limited
resources, and the very young, as siblings assume the role of caregivers. As a result, we
see the emergence of grandparent headed households. Children living with grandparents
are potentially vulnerable; as the grandparents are being “robbed” of their support mechanisms from their own children. The main challenges facing orphans in child-headed
households include growing up without parental support and guidance in an environment
devoid of consistently applied rules and values, and deprivation of parental love, care and
support. Additional challenges include children’s vulnerability to disease, poor health status, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy and abuse by the community, as well as diminished opportunities to receive an education (Nelson Mandela’s Children’s Fund, 2001).
The Family Life Cycle
Families not only exist in space but also in time. A family begins, progresses, changes,
expands and endures over a period of years. The seven developmental stages that are frequently cited are the couple stage, child-rearing, school-age, adolescence, launching,
post parental, and ageing (Seligman, 1999). Similarly, Combrinck-Graham (1989) refers
to the stages of “coupling”, where the parents from a relationship; “becoming three”,
when the first child is born; “entrances”, when the first child enters school; “expansion”,
when the last child enters school, “exits”, when the first child leaves home; “becoming
smaller/extended”, when the last child leaves the home; and “ending”, when one of the
parents passes away. Some of the most important developmental tasks of these stages
include establishing intimacy and learning to live with another person during the couple
stage. The child-rearing stage involves having children, responding with grief reactions to
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the diagnosis of a disability in a child, establishing parent-child bonds, socialization and
sibling rivalry. The main focus of the school-age period involves learning social and academic skills and making decisions regarding schooling. Adolescence highlights the need
to establish a sense of identity.
Genograms make it easier for clinicians to keep in mind the complexity of a family’s context, including family history, patterns and events that may have ongoing significance for
patient care. Gathering genogram information should be seen as an integral part of a comprehensive clinical assessment.
For the family with a disabled youngster, the potential for a delayed “launch” can result
in difficulties for family members. Siblings may feel obliged to remain at home and help
care for the disabled individual. These adult children may then feel that life is passing
them by and that they are unable to achieve their own dreams and aspirations or enter
into fulfilling relationships (Seligman, 1999). The post parental stage can also be affected
by the presence of a disabled child in the family. Instead of the parents reestablishing the
closeness that they enjoyed prior to the birth of their children, the couple may have to deal
with the demands of adult children who do not leave home. The ageing stage of the life
cycle is usually the time for dealing with integrity versus despair. However, parents with
disabled children often have to confront concerns about the future and questions of who
will care for the affected individual when they are no longer around.
THE FAMILY INFORMATION NET.
The process of gathering family information can be seen as casting out an information net
in larger and larger circles to capture relevant information about the family and its broader context. The net spreads out in a number of different directions:
•
From the presenting problem to the larger context of the problem
•
From the immediate household to the extended family and broader social systems
•
Form the present family situation to a chronology of historical family events
•
From easy, non threatening queries to difficult, anxiety provoking questions
•
From obvious facts to judgments about functioning and relationships within
families.
•
From ethnic to cultural questions and kinship network
•
Questions about individual functioning (work, finances, drug abuse,
alcohol abuse and trouble with the law).
In compiling a family genogram, the following aspects of families should be investigated:
The Presenting Problem and the Immediate Household.
In working with families, family members usually come with specific problems, which are
the clinicians starting point. At the outset families are told that some basic information
about them is needed to fully understand the problem. Such information usually grows
naturally out exploring the presenting problem and its impact on the immediate household. It makes sense to begin with the immediate family and the context in which the
problem occurs:
•
Who lives in the household?
•
How is each person related?
Where do other family members live?
•
•
The name, age, gender and occupation of each person in the household
•
Which family members know about the problem?
•
How does each view the problem? And how has each of them responded?
Has anyone in the family ever had similar problems?
•
•
What solutions were attempted by whom?
•
When did the problem begin? Who noticed it first? Who is most concerned about
the problem? Who is least concerned about the problem?
In addition, health care professionals need to be aware of any significant family changes
or events such as the birth of a new family member, a death in the family, illness or injury,
a divorce or separation, retrenchment and so forth, as these events are likely to have a profound impact on the client’s functioning (Ross & Deverell 2005).The role of the family
within the therapy process may also change over time.
Using Genograms to Map Family Patterns
Families are organized within biological, legal cultural and emotional structures, as well
as according to generation, age, gender and other factors. Where one fits into a family
structure can influence functioning, relational patterns and the type of family one forms
in the next generation. Gender and birth order are key factors shaping sibling relationship
and characteristics. When different structural configurations are mapped on the
genogram, the clinician can hypothesize possible personality characteristics and relational compatibilities. Ethnicity, race, religion, migration, class and socio-economic factors
also influences family structural patterns, these factors are part of the genogram map.
Genograms are appeal to clinicians because they are tangible and graphic representations
of complex family patterns. They allow clinicians to map the family structures clearly and
to note and update the family picture as it emerges. For a clinical record, the genogram
provides an efficient summary, allowing a clinician unfamiliar with a case to grasp quickly a large amount of information about a family and to have a view of potential problems.
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Where family relationships different before the problem began? What other
problems existed?
Does the family see the problem as having changed? In what ways? For better or
for worse?
Were there previous efforts to get help for the problem?
Were there previous therapists and hospitalizations?
3.
4.
5.
6.
The Current Family Situation
The clinician must also investigate the current family situation. The line of questioning
usually follows naturally from questions about the problem and who is involved:
•
What has been recently happening in your family?
•
Have there been any recent changes in the family (e.g. people coming or leaving,
illness, and employment problems)?
•
Has there been adoptions and fostering in the family?
•
Family background (extended family and cultural background)?
Dealing with Family Resistance to Doing a Genogram
When family members react negatively to questions about the extended family or complain that such matters are irrelevant, it makes sense to redirect the focus back to the
immediate situation, until the connection is made between the present situation and other
family relationships or experiences can be established. Gentle persistence over time will
usually result in obtaining the information and demonstrating its relevance to the family.
The clinician inquires about each side of the family separately, beginning for example
with the mother’s side and proceeding to the father’s side. The goal is to get information
about at least three or four generations, including grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles,
siblings, spouses and children.
Having considered the principles underpinning family therapy, the components of the
family and the stages in the family life cycle, the role of family genograms, it is appropriate to delineate the main steps involved in implementing family-focused interventions.
Steps involved in implementing family-focused interventions
Andrews (1986) highlights the following six steps or phases in implementing family therapy:
1.
Convening, this simply means assembling the family for the first session.
2.
Establishing a shared understanding of the problem. This goal is achieved by
learning about each family member’s view of the problem. The counselor
observes the family’s interaction patterns, listens to the views of family members,
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and clarifies and summarizes each person’s input.
Assisting the family to agree on desired changes and to set goals.
Determining the method of treatment or intervention that fits in with the family’s
lifestyle, and thereafter assigning tasks to family members and subsystems.
Encouraging the family to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention once the
methods or strategies have been implemented.
Terminating, includes developing mutual agreement for ending therapy, acknowl
edging the family’s role in changes that have taken place, linking the family to
other professionals and resources if necessary and, lastly, arranging follow-up
sessions.
Optimal and Successful Families
When therapists broaden their focus from individual therapy to family therapy, they in
effect become a “member” of the family and endeavor to teach by modeling effective
behavior. However, in order to be able to fulfill this role, it is necessary to understand
what family therapy tries to achieve in helping families to function in a more optimal manner. Luterman (1996:159) delineates five characteristics of the optimal family:
•
Communication among all family members is clear and direct
•
Roles and responsibilities are clearly delineated, overlapping and flexible in order
to allow for change when necessary.
•
Conflicts and disputes are resolved in a mutually satisfactory way.
•
Optimal families provide intimacy, affection and caring while also respecting the
need for personal space; they are cohesive without being enmeshed.
•
Optimal families are able to make the necessary changes to accommodate life
cycle and life crises while maintaining stability. According to Seligman
(1999:119), the family system needs to be permeable enough to allow for outside
help, such as respite care, when such help is needed and available.
Luterman (1996:161) maintains that the task of health care professionals working with
families with a disabled member if to help the family function as close to optimal as possible. He also describes the characteristics of the successful family as distinct from the
optimal family:
•
A successful family is one that feels empowered. For this reason professionals
should never take away hope from families. They should teach the family skills
they need to feel empowered. They should also not provide too much help as this
can be disempowering (Dunst, Trivette & Deal, 1988).
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In successful families the self-esteem, especially of the mother, is high.
In successful families there is a feeling that the burden is shared.
Successful families need to make philosophical sense of the situation.
Conclusion
The presence of a chronic condition or disability can affect a family’s activity and functions, self-identity, earning capacity, recreational and social activities, career decisions, as
well as its overall coping capabilities. Furthermore, a family’s cultural beliefs shape its
values, outlook on life, interactional patterns and functional priorities. Cultural style is
influenced by ethnic, racial, religious or socio-economic factors. Cultural beliefs can
affect the way in which families adapt to disability and can influence the use of and trust
in caregivers and care-giving institutions (Seligman, 1999:113). Family therapists need to
respect cultural differences, empower families, increase member’s self-confidence,
encourage sharing of the burden, and help them find answers to the question, “Why me?”.
Family systems intervention also aims to identify the strengths, concerns, needs and priorities of the family and the resources available to it, and ultimately aid the family in meeting these needs and linking them to available resources (Roush & McWillam, 1994).
However, in addition to the provision of family therapy, the task of professionals is also to
help minimize the negative effects of the disability by providing respite care, counseling
and recreational outlets, and by recommending appropriate early intervention (Seligman,
1999). A team approach is necessary because no single professional or discipline can
fully meet the needs of clients and their families (McGonigel, 1994). Also, the earlier that
family focused interventions begin, the greater the chance of positively influencing developmental outcomes in children across domains (Rossetti, 1996).
However, despite all the potential benefits of family-centered interventions, these
approaches may not be suitable for all family groups and individuals, and may depend on
individual family networks, resources, interests, motivation, emotional bonds, time available for family therapy, and cultural beliefs (Jareg & Jareg, 1994). Treacher and Carpenter
(1984) argue that family therapy often tends to focus predominantly on the family context,
and neglects the social context and the influential role played by negative societal attitudes towards disability. In some instances, the attention paid to an individual family
member’s condition or disorder will have been useful in distracting the family from other
threats, such as the treat of a marital break-up, and the system may therefore have a vested interest in maintaining its concern with the person’s disabling condition or disorder
(Frude, 1991). In addition to these limitations, health care professionals functioning in the
South African context who wish to utilize family focused interventions face the formida-
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ble task of dealing with the high incidence of Aids orphans and child-headed households.
Problems faced by orphan-headed households include inadequate income and resources
to meet basic needs such as food and shelter, lack of access to education and health care;
and deprivation of parental guidance, support and protection (Hook, Watts & Cockcroft,
2002). In relation to these factors, family therapy would appear to pale into insignificance.
Discussion Questions
1.Discuss the consequences that may arise when role reversal takes place in a family as a
result of children having to become the caregivers to their parents, due to illness or disability. Separate your discussion into the following categories: emotional consequences
related to the child, and emotional consequences related to the parent.
2.When a person is diagnosed with a terminal illness, the spouse often reacts with a form
of anticipatory grief, and begins the mourning process before the person has died. Discuss
the benefits and disadvantages of such reaction for both the ill person and his or her
spouse.
3.Using appropriate and practical examples, demonstrate your understanding of the use
of family genograms.
4.
Compile a family profile using the genogram.
References
1. Baker, R. L. (1999). The social Work Dictionary. NASW Press, Washington.
2. Andrews, J.R. 1986. Applications of Family Therapy Techniques. Seminars in Speech and
Language, 7(4), 347-358.
3. Drew, R. Foster, G. & Chitima, J. (1996). South African Aids Information Dissemination
Service News, 4(2), 14-16.
4. Dunst, C. Trivette, C. & Deal, A. 1988. Enabling and Empowering Families.
Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books.
5. Foster, G. (1997). Vancouver Conference Review. Aids Care, 9 (1), 82-87.
6. Frude, N. (1991). Understanding Family Problems: A Psychological Approach.
Chichester: John Wiley.
7. Grossman, F.K. (1972). Brothers and Sisters of Retarded Children. Syracuse: Syracuse
University Press.
8. Israelite, N.K. (1986). Hearing Impaired Children and the Psychological Functioning of
their Normal Hearing Siblings. Volta Review, 88, 47-54.
9. Jareg, E. & Jareg, A. (1994). Reaching Children through Dialogue. London: Macmillan.
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WORKING WITH GROUPS
10. Kissman, K. & Tunney, K. (2001). Preparing Students for Family Practice.
Contemporary Family Therapy, 23(3), 261-273.
11. Luterman, D. (1996). Counseling Persons with Communication Disorders. Austin TX:
Pro-Ed.
12. Mc Gonigel, M.J. (1994). Individualized Family Service Plan. Baltimore: New York
Press.
13. Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and Family Therapy. Cambridge MA: Harvard University
Press.
14. Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, (2001) A Report on a study into the Situation and
Special Needs of Children in Child Headed Households. Pretoria: office of the President.
15. Patterson, J.M. (1991). Family Systems Perspective for Working with Youth and
Disability. Pediatrician, 18,129-141.
16. Powell, T.H. & Gallagher, P.E. (1993). Brothers and Sisters: A special part of exceptional families. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.
17.Roberts, A.R. & Green, G.J. (2002). Social Worker’s Desk reference.
New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.
18. Ross, E. & Deverell, (2005). Psychosocial Issues in Illness and Health.
Pretoria: Van Schaik Publishers
19. Rossetti, L.M. (1996). Communication Intervention: Birth to three. San Diego, CA:
Singular.
20. Satir, V. (1967). Conjoint Family Therapy. Palo Ato, CA: Science and Behavior Books.
21, Schwab, L.O. (1989). Strength of Families having a Member with Disability. Journal of
Multihandicapped Persons, 2,105-117.
22. Seligman, M. (1995). Confessions of a Professional Father. Bethesda, MD Woodbine,
23. Seligman, M. (1999). Childhood Disability and the Family. New York: Kluwer
Academic.
24. Seligman, M. & Darling, R.B. (1997). Ordinary Families, Special Children. New York:
Guilford Press.
25. Treacher, A. & Carpenter, J. (1984). Using Family Therapy. London: Basil Blackwell.
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What is group work?
In the preface to her book, Elman (1999:xiii) states that “group therapy is enjoying a renaissance”, particularly given the economic constraints within which health care professionals in may countries are currently working. Toseland and Rivas (1998:12) define
group work as “goal-directed activity with small treatment and task groups aimed at meeting socio-emotional needs and accomplishing tasks these activities directed to individual
members of a group and to the group as a whole within a system of service delivery”. This
definition emphasizes several important characteristics of the group work method
(Toseland &Rivas, 1998):
•
It is planned, purposeful and professional activity.
•
It uses the small group, in which members take part in face-to-face interaction,
regard themselves as members of the group, share common goals and use the
group experience to achieve these goals.
•
It includes the use of a variety of treatment and task groups.
•
The focus for change may lie within the individual group member and/or the group
as a whole
•
It usually, but not always, occurs under the auspices of an agency.
The value of groups
Groups play an important role in our lives and people depend on membership of various
types of groups for the satisfaction of their basic needs, including the need for emotional
warmth, shelter, self-worth, learning and production. Most of us are members of various
groups, such as the family, the peer group, the classroom group and the work group.
Healthy group experiences can promote healthy development of the individual, help people to learn acceptable norms of social behavior, and engage in satisfying social relationships. Luterman (1996: xxvi) views the group process as a strong healing and educational vehicle. He points out that “within a group there is marvelous health, strength, and a
collective wisdom which supersedes the wisdom of any one member. The task of the
leader is to unleash that wisdom” (Luterman, 1996:111). Hence group work can be used
to help people to grow and change.
Types of Groups
According to Ross and Deverell (2005:19), groups may be classified according to their
size and the nature of members’ interaction, their formation and their purpose. We consider each of these types separately.
Groups classified according to their size and the nature of members’ interaction
These groups are divided into primary and secondary groups:
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Primary groups: these are small groups that allow for face-to-face contact
between group members and the forming of relationships. These groups satisfy the
individual’s need to belong and are necessary for the development of self-esteem.
Example of primary groups is the family and peer group.
•
Secondary groups: these groups are larger and less intimate than primary groups
although members may share common concerns. Examples of secondary groups
are political parties and people with the same disability.
Group classified according to their formation
According to Ross and Deverell (2005:19), these groups consist of natural, formed and
compulsory groups:
•
Natural groups: These groups come together spontaneously on the basis of
naturally occurring events, interpersonal attraction or mutually perceived needs,
such as friendship groups.
•
Formed groups: These groups are formed by the exercise of authority external to
the group. Membership of such groups is involuntary, e.g. committal to alcoholic
treatment group by the courts following a charge of driving under the influence of
alcohol.
Groups classified according to their purpose
Group work may be for the purpose of treatment or task:
•
Treatment: The main purpose of these groups is to meet members’ socio-emotion
al needs for education, growth, behavior change and socialization, e.g. a group to
help people who have experienced aphasia following a stroke to socialize and
learn to use alternative communication modalities.
•
Task: The main purpose of the group is to complete the task for which it was
formed, e.g. a committee group or a social action group to campaign for the
establishment of a nursery school for hearing-impaired children.
Advantages and limitations of group work
According to Ross and Deverell (2005), advantages of group work are the following:
•
This approach saves therapists’ time and allows them to see more patients or
clients than if they were to see them individually; it is more cost effective and pro
vides better utilization of person power. This argument is particularly relevant to
developing countries such as South Africa where health care professionals
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represent a scare and valuable resource.
•
The individual member is provided with the opportunity of both identifying and
trying out new skills in interaction with others, and experimenting with change.
The group environment provides a wide array of communication partners and
opportunities to practice a range of pragmatic skills across contexts, thereby
facilitating interpersonal learning and generalization to natural environments.
•
Groups can instill hope, and individuals are likely to feel less lonely and isolated
when they realize that they have things in common with other group members
(Yalom, 1975). Groups can facilitate mutual care and support and provide a sense
of group belonging. In fact, support from peers is often more acceptable that from
professionals. The opportunity to share feelings with others who have similar
needs and problems can be highly cathartic (Whitaker, 2001).
•
Within a safe, non-threatening group environment, group members may point out
each other’s maladaptive behavior, thereby freeing the therapist or group
facilitator to provide support when confrontation of the individual occurs.
•
Group work can be very effective in transcending racial and cultural barriers and
facilitating understanding of other groups. According to Daniels-Zide and BenYishay (2000), groups can also increase awareness and acceptance of disability.
Better solutions to problems may be found as members share their views; work on
•
each other’s problems and brainstorm ideas. Because information is provided not
only by the leader, but also by the other members of the group, participants
usually leave the group experience more informed than when the group started.
Democratic participation among members is more likely to occur in a group work
•
context. In task groups this is very important in reducing the likelihood of
resistance when changes need to be considered. Moreover, the ratio of members
of therapist alters the power position to a more democratic basis.
•
Some persons prefer a group setting to individual therapy.
•
Group treatment can be a valuable adjunct to individual treatment (Holland &
Ross, 1999).
Self-disclosure in a supportive setting can promote self-awareness and self•
acceptance.
There are also advantages for professional caregivers. Groups provide a valuable
•
referral source for clinicians working with individual clients.
•
Support groups provide self-care for professionals in occupations that are at thigh
risk for stress and burnout. For example, Kennedy (as cited in Nicholls &
Jenkinson, 1992) found that both clients and professionals who were struggling with
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stressful situations fared better physically and psychologically if they had support than
when they did not have access to a support system.
Skills Needed for Working with Groups
According to Ross and Deverell (2005:274-275), the group therapist is mainly concerned
with the enhancement of various relationships within the group – the relationship
between individual group members, the relationship between the group therapist and the
group as a whole, and the relationship between the facilitator and each individual member of the group. The six skills that a group therapist needs to work effectively with groups
are:
•
Communication skills
•
Leadership skills
•
Skilled use of self
Skilled use of programme
•
•
Skilled intervention in the environment
•
Skilled use of assessment and evaluation
Each of these skills is described separately below
Communications skills
The group facilitator or group therapist is concerned with his or her own communication
skills in order to enhance the development of the group, and is also concerned with teaching members communication skills for use in their daily life situations. These skills
include:
Establishing a listening environment, i.e. suitable atmosphere for listening and
•
communication
•
Improving members’ skills in sending messages, or their expressive skills, i.e.
helping members express ideas and feelings effectively
Improving members’ skills in receiving messages, or their receptive skills, i.e.
•
helping members to listen effectively
Facilitating communication between members
•
•
Sharing one’s own feelings purposefully
Leadership skills
These skills refer to the actions, behavior and activities that help the group as a whole and
individual members to achieve their goals. Leadership is seldom exercised only by the
group facilitator, and members need to be encouraged to assume responsibility for various leadership roles in order to promote indigenous leadership. There are three basic
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leadership styles:
•
Autocratic style: the leader decides on the policy and gives orders to the group
members.
•
Democratic style: the leader encourages group interaction and participation of all
members in democratic discussion and decision making.
•
Laissez-faire style: the leader only participates minimally and the group is left to
its own devices.
Closely allied to leadership skills are styles of group facilitation. Different types of
groups call for different styles of group facilitation. Heron (as cited in Burnard, 1996)
delineates six dimensions of facilitator style, which can be depicted as follows on a continuum:
Directive
non –directive
Interpretive
non-interpretive
Confronting
non-confronting
Cathartic
non-cathartic
Structured
non-structured
Disclosing
non-disclosing
A directive approach involves offering suggestions as to what the group may do and how
it may proceed. A non-directive approach offers no advice and allows the group to evolve
of its own accord.
An interpretive approach involves offering the group explanations of what may be happening in the group according to a particular theoretical framework. A non-interpretive
approach allows the group to offer its won interpretation of what is happening.
A confronting style implies challenging individual members or the group as a whole on
any issue.
A non-confronting style encourages the group to confront itself.
A cathartic style encourages the release of emotional tension, for example sharing feelings
about having a child with Down’s syndrome. A non-cathartic style does not encourage
ventilation of feelings.
A structured approach provides a format for the group to follow. An unstructured
approached allows the group to create its own structure.
A disclosing style implies that the facilitator shares his or her thoughts, feelings and experiences with the group. A non-disclosing style implies that the facilitator does not share
any personal thoughts and feelings (Burnard, 1996).
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Skilled use of self
The group facilitator’s own personality is one of the basic tools in the practice of group
work. The facilitator needs to be aware of the impact of his or her personality, expertise
and sanction by the sponsoring agency on group members. In order to develop skill in
the use of self, the group therapist needs to develop self-awareness.
Skilled use of assessment and evaluation
Assessment and evaluation are ongoing activities starting with the assessment of the need
for the group and potential membership before the group is formed and concluding after
termination when the entire life of the group is reviewed. The group’s effectiveness can
be assessed according to whether or not goals were achieved.
Skilled use of programme
The group facilitator needs to develop skills in the use of various programme activities
such as games, discussion, role-play, outings and guest speakers. Such activities are chosen according to the needs of individual group members and the group as a whole, and
may be used to attain various goals, for example to promote interaction, enhance selfesteem and learn social skills. Group facilitators need to know which features of an
activity are likely to result in certain behavior.
Group processes or dynamics
Group processes or dynamics refer to the interactions, development and changes that
occur within and during the life of the group. Douglass (1979) and Schulman (1992)
describe the tem, major group processes, as set out below.
Skilled intervention in the environment
The group therapist of facilitator may need to become familiar with the environmental circumstances of the different group members. During the life of the group, he or she may
need to intervene in the members’ environments for a number of reasons, including:
•
To obtain support for individual group members and/or the group as a whole
To obtain information on individual members
•
•
To link members with resources within their environments, e.g. Refer the mother
of a child with emotional and behavioral problems to a child assessment and
therapy clinic.
•
To mediate between individual members and significant others in the members’
environment, e.g. a husband who feels that it is a waste of time for his wife to
attend the group
•
To advocate on behalf of the group, e.g. to speak to the hospital authorities about
establishing crèche facilities for children of parents attending the group.
When considering any form of environmental intervention, group facilitators need
to be familiar with the particular culture of group members and their families in
order to avoid culturally inappropriate behavior.
Interaction
This refers to how group members relate to each other. This process is based to group
work, since without interaction no group can exist. According to Adair-Ewing (1999),
interaction and interdependence among group members are crucial components in facilitating any progress that takes place in group therapy.
Group development
According to Ross and Deverell (2005), group development refers to the various changes
that take place in the group during its life, extending from the planning phase, through the
formation and work phases and, finally, to the termination phase.
Goal formation
According to Ross and Deverell (2005), group formation refers to how the facilitator forms
or develops goals for the group as a whole and for each individual member, and how
members establish goals for themselves, each other and the group as a whole.
Decision making
According to Ross and Deverell (2005), decision making refers to how individual and
group decisions are arrived at, implemented and changed.
Norms, standards and values
These refer to the accepted behavior patterns of members, and sanctions that are applied
for non-conformity. For example, in South Africa, members of burial societies are expected to wear a hat or a scarf as s sigh of respect when attending meetings. Those members
who arrive at meetings with their heads uncovered can be penalized by being asked to
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pay a certain sum of money into the general kitty, (Ross and Deverell, 2005).
Group bond or cohesion
This refers to the satisfaction members derive from being part of the group, and the extent
of their sense of belonging to the group, (Ross and Deverell, 2005).
Group influence
Group influence refers to the pressure the group can extent on its members, (Ross and
Deverell, 2005).
Group climate
This refers to the emotional tone in which the group in working at any particular time.
Douglas (1979) mentions that autocratic leaders have been found to produce aggressive
or apathetic climates with rebellious or dependent behavior respectively and often lack
capacity for initiating new group action. Liassez-faire leadership tends to produce more
discontent, hostility and less friendliness. Democratic leadership tends to create a friendly atmosphere. For the leader to get things done, it might be necessary for him/her to provide the type of leadership that is responsive to the profile of the group (level of maturity
and focus) and the task that the group has set for itself. Too much of laissez-faire might not
be ideal for the task oriented groups.
Social structure
According to Ross and Deverell (2005), social structure refers to the consistent positions
that members hold or roles that they fulfill in the group, and the consistent ways members
relate to each other. Some of the more common roles include the scapegoat, monopoliser, quiet member, gatekeeper, task leader, and socio-emotional or maintenance leader.
Scapegoat
The scapegoat is a concept derived from the ancient Hebrew ritual adopted each year on
the Day of Atonement, when the chief priest symbolically laid the sins of the people on
the back of a goat and then drove the animal into the wilderness. The death of the goat
led to the ritual cleansing of the sins of the people. Similarly, when group members
“scapegoat’ another member; they usually attack that aspect of the other person that they
most dislike in themselves. Many scapegoats have been socialized into this role by their
family experiences. At the same time the group is helped of fulfill functional needs. More
specifically, the group and the scapegoat often use this process as a means of raising a
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theme of concern. Facilitators can adopt any of the following options when scapegoat
occurs:
Stop it
•
•
Draw attention to its occurrence and allow the group to deal with it
•
Suggest a short group break
•
Switch the discussion to another topic
•
Ask the person concerned how he or she is feeling about what is happening and
then take the cue from there in terms of what to do.
Monopliser
This member dominates the group because the other group members tacitly allow him or
her to do so. The facilitator can:
•
Do nothing and hope that the group members will resolve the difficulty.
•
Go round the circle so that each member has a turn to contribute.
•
Change the seating arrangements
•
Gently ask the Monopliser to wait until another member has been given the
opportunity to speak
•
Turn away from the monopoliser or “shut out” the person by gently holding up the
hand and asking what the rest of the group thinks.
The quite member
The quiet member is one who remains noticeably silent over a period of time. Shulman
(1992) stresses that it is a mistake to believe that all members need to speak equally. Some
individuals participate actively through listening but may nevertheless feel uncomfortable
about “taking” and not “giving”. Others state that by the time they get an opportunity to
speak, the idea has been stated and the group has moved on. Yet others fear self-disclosure or lack assertiveness. The facilitator can help the quiet member to participate by:
•
Offering him or her the opportunity to speak without putting the person on the
spot
•
Speaking to the quiet member outside the group and making a secret arrangement
about signals to alert the facilitator to the fact that the person wants to talk.
Gatekeeper
This member guards the gates through which the group must pass for the work to deepen.
When the group gets close to a difficult subject such as sex, the gatekeeper diverts the discussion by making a joke. The facilitator can confront the person or group about what is
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happening, or speak to the person individually outside the group.
Task leader
This person helps the group achieve its tasks and goals by giving and seeking information
and opinions, initiating, giving directions, summarizing, coordinating, clarifying, focusing
and evaluating.
Socio-emotional leader
The socio-emotional or maintenance leader is a person who concerns him or herself with
the feelings, relationships and participation of the people in the group. The functions of
such a person include encouraging participation, harmonizing and compromising, tension relieving, helping communication, evaluating the emotional climate, observing
processes, listening actively, building trust and resolving interpersonal conflict. Other
positions in the group include resource persons, co-leaders and so forth.
Subgroup formation
This refers to the emotional bonds and interest alliances that may develop among members, such as dyads (two-person groupings) and triads (three-person grouping). Some of
the more common subgroup processes include pairing, “league of gentlemen”, wrecking
and rescuing.
Pairing
Pairing occurs when two group members talk quietly to each, ignoring the rest of the
group, or when two group members discuss issues with one another across the group.
Pairing is usually disruptive to the group because it prevents the group from operating as
a unit. Burnard (1996) suggests that facilitators adopt any of the following strategies for
dealing with this phenomenon:
•
Ignore it and see what happens
Draw attention to the fact and allow the group to resolve the problem
•
•
Confront the two persons concerned
•
Suggest that all the group members change seats.
Contract with the group in the beginning stage that all members will be on the
•
lookout for the occurrence of such dynamics.
•
Engage one of the pair in a discussion so as to temporarily disrupt the pairing.
“League of gentlemen”
“League of gentlemen” is a phrase coined by Heron (as cited in Burnard, 1996)
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and refers to a variant of pairing that occurs when a small subgroup of people disrupt a
group by forming a hostile and often sarcastic body of persons whose purpose is to make
life in the group difficult. Burnard (1996) suggests the following ways of dealing with this
phenomenon:
•
Direct confrontation, which may lead to a power struggle between the facilitator
and the leader of the “league of gentlemen”
•
Drawing the group’s attention to what is happening in the group and allowing the
“league of gentlemen” to surface as an issue.
•
Disclosure by the facilitator of his or her own discomfort at what is happening
within the group; this intervention is often disarming to the league
Wrecking
Wrecking is described by Burnard (1996) as a “one-person” version of the “league of gentlemen”. Here, an individual member of the group, for whatever reason, tries to sabotage
the group. For example, the person may consistently disagree with everything the facilitator says or does. He or she may refuse to participate in any activities and encourage others to follow suit. The wrecker may repeatedly arrive late or suddenly walk out of the
group. Alternatively, the person may offer non-verbal resistance by remaining silent but
indicating dissatisfaction by the use of facial expression. Burnard (1996) maintains that
wrecking, as a group process often occurs when people are “sent” to interpersonal skills
training groups rather than coming of their own volition. He suggests the following
options for dealing with wrecking:
•
Confronting the person directly, which may lead to a power struggle between
wrecker and facilitator
•
Drawing the group’s attention to the fact that something is happening within the
group and inviting comments
•
Talking to the person on his or her own outside the group, because wrecking
behavior can sometimes be a cover for deep unhappiness on the part of the
wrecker.
Rescuing
Rescuing is the opposite of scapegoating. In this case, a member of the group is constantly protected by one or more members of the group. Sometimes the person being rescued
presents the image of not being able to cope and needing help. On the one hand, a certain amount of rescuing is reasonable as we all need to be helped out sometimes. For
example, a student in her final year of study was living with her boyfriend and they were
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planning to get married after she had graduated. He suddenly contracted a lethal virus
and died within a week of being admitted to hospital. She was absolutely distraught, overwhelmed by the experience of loss and completely unable to cope with her studies. Her
fellow classmate sensed her inability to cope and immediately came to the rescue. They
organized a schedule of class members who took turns to take lecture notes for her and
help out with her therapy clients. They also visited her regularly so that she was not left
alone during this crisis. After a few months the particular student was gradually able to
come to terms with her loss and started reassuming her former roles and responsibilities.
At the same time, the rescuing behavior on the part of her classmates gradually reduced
in frequency until it ceased altogether.
Rescuing is also fairly prevalent in health care professions. However, persistent rescuing
prevents the person being rescued from making his or own decisions or discovering ways
of coping with difficult situations within the group. Burnard (1996) maintains that the
facilitator can adopt any of the following options:
•
Ignore the rescuing
•
Ask the person being rescued what he or she would like to do
•
Confront the rescuer or rescuers directly
•
Consult the group members about what they think is going on.
•
Ask the person being rescued to speak for him or herself.
An example of unhealthy rescuing occurred when a student who had been assigned to a
group project was observed to be persistently rescued by the other group members to the
extent that she did not have to do anything or provide any input at the weekly feedback
sessions with the tutor. In this case the tutor adopted two strategies, namely bringing the
issue our into the open so that he group become aware of its existence, and asking the
person being rescued for her views without putting her on the spot.
The role of the group facilitator throughout the life of the group
According to Malekoff (1997:81), “a good group has a life of its own, each one with a
unique personality … we must learn to value the developmental life of a group”.
Although each group is unique, all tend to develop in similar ways. The main stages in
the life of a group are:
•
The pregroup or planning phase
•
The beginning or formation phase
The middle or work phase
•
•
The end or termination phase
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The pregroup or planning phase
The success of any group depends to a large extent on the soundness of preparation that
was made for its creation (Purser, 1982).. Hence, group workers can benefit from applying the motto “overprepare and underutilize” to this stage of group development. The following is a combined checklist of issues suggested by Douglas (1979), Heap (1985) and
Toseland and Rivas (1998), which the group facilitator needs to be concerned with during
this initial phase:
•
Orientation regarding the general pathology of the proposed group
For example, the facilitator needs to read up on recent literature in stuttering,
aphasia, hearing impairment or whatever disabling disorder is applicable to the
group.
•
Establishing the group’s purpose
The purpose should include both individual and group goals; should be related to the
aims of the sponsoring agency; and should address an area of unmet client need.
•
Orientation regarding community resources
For example, the facilitator may need to find out about available aids, brochures, guest
speakers who could be invited to talk on a topic of interest to the group and so forth.
•
Deciding on the type of group
This refers to the size of the group; whether it will be natural, formed or compulsory;
whether it will be a social treatment group, task group, educational, leisure or mixed
group; and whether it will be an open or closed group (that is, whether new members can
join any time after the commencement of the group, or whether the group membership is
limited to those who are initially involved in its formation).
•
Considering possible methods to be used and formulating a tentative programme
of activities
Activities could include play, dram role-play, discussion, movement, or a mixed range of
activities, depending on the nature of the group, the age range of members and the goals
of the group.
•
Assessing potential sponsorship and membership of the group
Agency sponsorship should be carefully assessed, as this factor can affect the level of support and resources likely to be available for the group. The facilitator needs to consider
whether the proposed group fits in with the organization’s policies. How do colleagues
in the agency feel about the group? Estimating potential membership of the group can
give the group therapist an idea of the viability of the proposed group. For example, if only
a few clients at a speech and hearing clinic have undergone a cochlear implantation, or
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personnel at the clinic are not in favor of this procedure, it may not be viable to start such
a group.
•
Recruiting members
Sources of potential group members need to be explored both within and outside the
agency. For example, in order to recruit patients for a stroke support group, one could
contact various hospitals, approach health care professional who work in this area, or
peruse clinic files. Group members can also be sourced from the casework caseloads if
one realizes that a significant number of individuals present common problems to the
agency.
•
Composing the group
The group facilitator selects members according to both group and individual needs, but
tries to ensure that group members have enough in common to encourage mutual identification and enough diversity to provide stimulation. The facilitator also needs to consider the basis on which members will be selected; the age range, gender distribution and
size of the group; whether membership will be open or closed; social background, intelligence; ability to verbalize; or any other relevant factors. Ideally, it is also advisable to
exclude members who could potentially be harmed by the group experience or who
could potentially harm other group members.
•
Inviting members, orienting them and motivating them to join the group
The way members are oriented to the potential service is very important as this process
begins the relationship between the group facilitator and the members. It can take the
form of a personal letter, a notice, a telephone call, an individual interview or a home
visit. These orientation methods are designed to clarify the purpose of the proposed
group, and some of these procedures are better than others for screening potential members for appropriateness. During the orientation process the facilitator who makes personal contact with potential members needs to be sensitive to people’s concerns and anxieties regarding the proposed group work service.
Contracting
According to Ross and Deverell (2005), this process involves the following:
Administrative procedures, e.g. time, venue frequency of sessions, duration of
•
each session, how long the group will go in meeting, and whether transport is
available or needed.
•
Individual member’s goals, which should be linked to group goals. The details of
both these forms of contracting should be negotiable and remain open to revision
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as the group develops.
•
Programme, e.g. discussion, role-play, guest speakers.
Norms, e.g. confidentiality or personalizing where members are expected to
•
personalize all their comments by using pronouns such as “I”, “me” and “my”,
rather than speaking in the third person. Another group norm might be that when
individuals self-disclose, they are never penalized and are always supported.
Preparing the environment
The penultimate responsibility of the group facilitator before convening the group is to
secure the venue and necessary resources for the group, such as chairs, a plug for the
heater, video machine, tape recorder and so forth. Furthermore, other staff of the sponsoring agency should be told about the proposed group service. For example, the caretaker of the building may need to know that the key to the room to be used for the group
is available to the group facilitator on the days in question. An example that comes to
mind is that of a young student who prepared in great detail for her first group session.
She planned to show a video, booked the venues and prepared the furniture. However,
one detail that she forgot to check was whether the room in question had a suitable plug
socket (Ross and Deverell (2005).
•
Preparing a written proposal
The final task in planning for a group is to prepare a written proposal. Such a proposal
may be necessary in order to obtain agency sponsorship of funding. A written proposal
can inform potential members about the proposed group and can help the group worker
in preparing for meetings. Proposals can be based on the 11 previous points.
By planning in as much detail as possible, and taking as many of the aforementioned
points into account, the facilitator can increase the chances of successful group development.
The beginning or formation phase
Once the group is convened, intermember interaction tends to be characterized by uncertainty, doubt, fear, ambivalence or approach-avoidance behavior. Members may try to
reach out to one another, but at the same time they may wish to maintain their distance
and therefore tend to withdraw after reaching out (Kaplan, 2001).
Shulman (1992) maintains that the first group meeting sets the tone and lays the groundwork for future groups and, if handled well, can positively influence the group’s development. During this stage, members usually have three questions that are uppermost in their
minds:
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•
Why are we here?
•
What kind of person will the group facilitator be?
•
How can other people who apparently have the same problem as I do (e.g. stuttering), help me?
If the group facilitator fails to address these issues, members are likely to remain guarded
and to limit their involvement in the group. For this reason, both Heap (1985) and
Shulman (1992) recommended that first meetings be relatively structured. Structure also
provides security and direction for the group. In the process of structuring groups in the
early stages, it is also important not to force participation as members need time to establish trust, group bond, and togetherness.
Structuring of group sessions during the beginning phase involves:
Introduction
• The group members and facilitator usually sit in a comfortable room, in a circle where
they can establish eye contact with each other. The group leader or facilitator introduces
him or herself.
• Group members introduce themselves
• An introductory or warm-up exercise can be used to break the ice and help members
become acquainted with each other and to orient them to the group as a whole. For
example, they could each describe why they are there. Alternatively, the new group could
divide up into dyads or pairs in which each member of the dyad interviews the other. The
group then reconvenes and each member of the pair introduces the other to the group.
The group worker needs to be creative and involve group members in activities/ games
and exercises that will encourage group members to open up and become more interactive. The group worker must ensure that all group members are given space and time to
participate in group activities that will encourage the group to bond.
Immediate needs
The group facilitator gives members time to discuss their needs. The main reason for this
discussion of needs is that the group worker must be able to where possible merge the
needs of the individual group members with those of the group as a group/ qua group.
While the group pursues the needs of the group, it must endeavor to simultaneously also
address the immediate needs of the individual group members. The group worker must
always keep in mind the notion that group goals consist of both what individuals and
groups want to achieve through the medium of a group.
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Expectations
•
The group facilitator asks members about their expectations.
•
Group members discuss their expectations with one another in small groups.
Expectations are dealt within the group
•
•
Alternatively, members write down their expectations
Formulation of objectives
These must be feasible, easily understood, attainable, attractive and directly related to
needs of the group and of the individual group members.
Programme planning
•
Formulate needs and/or problems. For example, a group of mothers of deaf
children might mention the following needs or problems: communication,
discipline, feelings about having a deaf child, and education.
•
Rank the needs or problems in order of importance. For example, feelings about
having a deaf child may be ranked first, communication second, education third
and discipline in fourth position.
•
Determine alternative ways of dealing with these needs. For example, the
mothers may suggest inviting an older parent of a deaf child who has been through
the experience to come and talk to the group. Alternatively, they might decide to
invite a social worker or psychologist to facilitate a group discussion about the
emotions evoked by the diagnosis of deafness in their children.
•
Decide on strategies or plans for dealing with the needs or problems. For
example, the group could decide to invite the mother of an older deaf child. One
member would be responsible for extending an invitation to the person
concerned; a second member could buy a small gift and a third one could arrange
the refreshments.
It is important that the group facilitator does not plan the programme for the group or on
behalf of the group but takes an active part in planning with the group. The views of the
group members must be must be incorporated in the plans of the group so that the plan
is co-owned by both the group worker and the group that s/he is facilitating.
Contracting
Review and possibly amend the contract in terms of the following aspects:
Administrative procedures, e.g. time, venue, duration, number of sessions and fre
•
quency of sessions.
•
Goals or objectives, e.g. to provide support for mothers of mentally handicapped
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children
Programme, e.g. a discussion, a visit to a school for mentally handicapped
children, and invitation to a teacher involved in the education of these children,
or an invitation to parents of an older handicapped child to share their experiences
with the group
Norms, e.g. confidentiality, openness and personalizing
The group facilitator’s role
•
Conveying acceptance of members by actively listening and trying to understand
their viewpoints, individually and as group members
•
Facilitating interaction and helping members discover what they have in common
and to develop the group bond/ togetherness
•
Helping members to feel as part of the group/oneness with the group
•
Attempting to maintain an open structure
•
Providing initial structure for the group
•
Assessing the functioning of individual group members, the group as a whole, and
the group’s environment
•
Mobilizing resources for the group and matching agency resources with the needs
of the group
Assisting the group to function within the available agency resources.
•
•
Assisting the agency to be hospitable to the needs of the group.
Mediating between the sponsoring agency and the group.
•
The middle or work phase
The middle stage of group development is usually characterized by an initial period of
testing, conflict, confrontation and adjustment, as members work on their relationships
with each other and with the group as a whole (Toseland & Rivas, 1998; Kaplan, 2001).
Group members may also test the facilitator in his or her role as leader. Both individual
and group contracts may be revised. The testing phase may help the group to move
towards a more stable social structure so that work can begin on the specific purposes for
which the group was convened. The middle period of group life can therefore be characterized by problem solving and accomplishment of tasks. Activities are used extensively
in order to achieve group goals. Both the group facilitator and the members are actively
involved in selecting activities and using them purposefully.
In the meantime the group facilitator maintains a focus on individual members, the group
as a whole and the environment and, if necessary, he or she may intervene in one or more
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of these areas. The group’s progress is constantly evaluated and members are encouraged
to involve themselves in the evaluation process. With a mature group, leadership functions can be handed over to natural leaders in the group. Conflicts may continue to occur
as members work at their goals, but generally this phase is regarded as a positive and stimulating one. Group cohesion is usually well established by the middle state, with levels
of trust, acceptance and self-disclosure being relatively high (Luterman, 1996; Toseland &
Rivas, 1998).
Group
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
facilitation skills involved in the middle phase include:
Exploring the problem using empathy, active listening, probing, etc.
Supporting members and encouraging them
Being a source of help to members
Enabling them to contribute
Coordinating attempts
Exploring and using community resources
Structuring group-role allocation
Assuming a less directive role than previously and sharing the leadership
The role of group members involves:
•
Communicating and interacting
•
Contributing to problem solving
•
Engaging in an active learning process
Experiencing interpersonal relationships
•
•
Providing feedback to each other and to the group leader/facilitator
•
Evaluation of the group as a whole.
The ending or termination phase
The termination of a group is part of its developmental sequence. However, not all groups
die. Open groups in which membership is constantly changing carry on. Termination of
group can be planned or unplanned. In the latter case the group terminates for natural
reasons, for example when members leave the area or become ill or when the group goals
have been achieved.
When a group worker has to terminate a group because s/he is leaving an agency, members should be told as early as possible when this will occur. Reasons for termination
should be shared with the group, feelings discussed and unfinished business completed.
The new group worker should ideally be introduced to group members and if possible,
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co-lead the group with the existing group worker.
In groups where members have been encouraged to self-disclose, endings are likely to be
more emotionally charged than in task groups where members have focused on the task
at hand rather than ventilation of feelings.
Reaction to separation/termination/ending phase
Members may show several reactions to the separation:
•
Denial: members ignore the fact that the ending was ever mentioned.
•
Regression: “sliding backward” occurs and remarks are passed to the effect that,
“we still need the group”. In this way members try to prolong the life of the group
(Kaplan, 2001).
•
Reminiscing: members relive the shared experience.
•
Other reactions: Group members try to finish their business, withdraw interest,
loosen ties, or express sadness, depression or anger, relief or anxieties about the
future. Positive feelings include a sense of empowerment and accomplishment,
independence, satisfaction and pride in completing the group experience,
usefulness from hearing others, and confidence that problems can be coped with
and solved.
Evaluation of the group experience
Evaluation of the group experience needs to focus on the following aspects:
•
Objectives: Were they attained or not? Ideally, groups should terminate when the
purpose for which they were convened has been achieved.
•
Administrative aspects of the contract: For example, was the time and venue
suitable?
•
Group leader/facilitator: For example, how did group members experience the
group facilitator?
•
Evaluation of individual members’ role fulfillment:
Tasks leaders,
socio-emotional leaders, jokers, etc.
It can also be helpful to ask group members to spend a few moments reflecting on the
group experience and any final messages they wish to deliver to other group members.
They then spend some time delivering those messages.
It is important to remember that termination is not a single event, but a process that commences when the group is formed and they are told when sessions will be ending (as part
of the contract). Heap (1985) identifies three aspects that are necessary for a satisfactory
termination process:
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•
Termination needs to be actively anticipated and degrees of readiness and
resistance noted.
Feelings about termination need to be explored
•
•
The work of the group needs to be reviewed, completed and its implications
considered.
It can be beneficial if termination is perceived as a symbol of growth rather than loss.
Separation is made easier when the group facilitator reassures the group that it is possible
to take what has been learnt in the group and continue to apply this knowledge in everyday social relations. The facilitator thereby expresses his or her faith that the group’s purpose has been achieved. A party is often a nice way of rounding off a positive group experience.
Directions for further social functioning
The group facilitator or therapist may also need to provide direction to members for further social functioning by:
•
Motivating members to try to maintain the beneficial changes that have resulted
from the group experience.
•
Motivating them to take part in social activities
•
Motivating them to utilize the skills, attitudes and knowledge gained through the
group in a variety of situations
•
Motivating them to seek out and use new services when it is appropriate to do so
•
Putting them in touch with community resources and aids and referring them to
other groups that can provide alternative support systems
During the termination phase, the group worker also needs to explore his or her personal feelings with regard to ending work with the group. In this way therapists are usually
better able to help members explore their feelings about termination.
Conclusion.
Group work can have tremendous value in the therapeutic process. It can be done with
individuals who have a variety of disabilities or disorders as well as their families, and can
be used either alone or to supplement individual therapy. Developing skills in facilitating
groups should be part of the training of all health care professionals. Finally, in the words
of Luterman (1996:130), “… there is no greater gift that we can give to our clients than a
well-facilitated group”.
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NOTES
Classroom exercises
1. Break up into small groups of 5-6 students and brainstorm ways of dealing with the following group processes: scapegoating; the monopoliser; the quiet member of isolate;
pairing; “league of gentlemen”; wrecking; and rescuing. Each group discusses two issues
and elects a representative to write down key points on an overhead transparency and
report back to the plenary group.
2. Groups of students are asked to volunteer to enact the various stages of group development. The groups select different types of health conditions or disorders and one member of each group assumes the role of facilitator. The class gives feedback on the sociodrama enacted before them.
References
Burnard, P. (1996) Counseling Skills for Health Professionals. London: Chapman and Hall
Daniels-Zide, E. and Ben-Yishay, Y. (2000). Therapeutic Milieu Day Program.
New York: Kluwer Academic.
Elman, R.J. (1999). Group Treatment of Communication Disorders. Boston: ButterworthHeinemann.
Heap, K. (1985). The Practice of Social Work with Groups. London: George Allen &
Unwin.
Holland, A.L. & Ross, R. (1999). The Power of Aphasia Groups. Boston: ButterworthHeinemann.
Kaplan, C. (2001). Social Work with Groups: Journal of Community and Clinical Practice,
24(2), 47-67.
Luterman, D. (1996). Counseling Persons with Communication Disorders. Austin Texas:
TX Pro- Ed.
Makeloff, A. (1997). Social Work with Groups: Journal of Community and Clinical
Practice, 25(1/2), 73-86.
Nicholls, K.A. & Jenkinson, J. (1992). Leading a Support Group. London: Chapman & Hall.
Purser, H. (1982). Psychology for Speech Therapists.
Shulman, L. (1992). The Skills of Helping Individuals. Ithaca: F.E. Peacock.
Toseland, R.W. & Rivas, R.F. (1998) An Introduction to Group Work Practice. Boston:
Allyn & Bacon.
Whitaker, D.S. (2001). Using Groups to Help People. UK: Brunner-Routledge.
Yalom, I. (1975). The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy. New York: Basic
Books.
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PARCIPATORY ACTION AND LEARNING RESERCH
1.Executive Summary
This module differs from the others you have studied thus far. This is so because different
objectives apply in this part of the course. The aim is to familiarize you with the research
frame of mind and use of the study of the literature as a research technique. Tutorial matters shall be discussed and at the same time assignments will enable you to apply some
of the participatory action and learning research techniques when you work on the essay
type of assignment. In this way you will also get practical experience that you will be
expected to perform that may include tasks / exercises.
It is also expected of you to go through all the steps spelled out here to ensure that your
research skills are further strengthened.
For examination purposes you must be prepared to answer an essay-type question, multiple-choice questions, on the research.
2.Introduction
This module will focus on how we proceed when we wish to do our own research
(because we have an interest in the subject or issue) if we have to (because the community we work with has an interest in a specific project) and this need to be pursued.
However this module will focus on Participatory Action Research (PAR) framework of
research methodology and this will be discussed as follows:
3.Reasons for the use of participatory action research
Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a form of research whereby people within the community under study (that you work with) participates actively. There will be the involvement of a professional researcher throughout the research process. This may start from the
initial or first design to the final presentation of results and discussion of their action plan.
Participatory research is an applied research. It differs with the conventional model of pure
research in which members of organizations and communities are treated as passive (inactive) subjects. Through this type of research, members of the community being studied
become actively involved in the quest for information and ideas to guide their future
actions.
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4.
Definition of concepts
4.1
Participatory research
Participatory research can be defined as means of closing the gap, of remedying the power
inequities through processes of knowledge production, with active community participation which strengthened voices, organization and action (Reason & Bradbury, 2001).
Participatory research is also a process through which members of an oppressed group or
community identify a problem, collect and analyze information, and act upon the problem in order to find solutions and to promote social and political transformation (Reason
& Torbert, 2001).
De Vos (2002) view participatory action research as a model that can be defined as an
active, participating, capacity building, involving, encouraging, mobilizing and enabling
research procedure in which the total community and the researcher are seen as equal
partners.
4.2
Action research
Action research is a participatory, democratic process concerned with developing practical knowing in the pursuit of worthwhile human purposes. It is grounded or based in a
participatory worldwide view which is emerging at this historical moment in South Africa.
Furthermore, it seeks to bring together action and reflection, theory and practice, in participation with others, in the pursuit of practical solutions to issues of pressing concern to
people. More generally, it contributes towards the improvement of the quality of life of
individual persons and communities.
The primary or main purpose of action research is:
To produce practical knowledge that is useful to people in everyday conduct of
•
their lives;
•
It is about working towards practical outcomes
•
It also creates new forms of understanding and reflection on the issue to be
studied;
•
Collective action therefore, involves mutual sense making with, for and by persons
and communities;
Ideally it involves all stakeholders or important people that are of influence in the
•
community and those that are interested in the research project in question;
•
Action research can help people to build a better and a freer society (Greenwood,
1998).
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The aim of participatory action research is to change practices, social structures,
and social media which maintain irrationality, injustice and unsatisfying forms of
existence.
The community should therefore define their problems and remedies (solutions)
and take the lead in research that will help them achieve their aims.
Participatory action research also gives the community access to information with
power. Once the community members see themselves as researchers, they regain
power over knowledge (Babbie, 2001: 288).
Participatory action research can also be considered as a participative bottom- up
approach in which the investigated (community) become the investigators
(community members).
n PAR the community becomes actively involved in a collective effort to address
and solve social problems that are affecting them.
Their knowledge and skills are increased.
They also are enabled and encouraged to use their own resources fully.
The community quality of life and social functioning become improved and the
social structure in which they operate gets transformed (De Vos, 2002).
The community will holistically benefit for the betterment of all.
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5.
Definition of terminology
The following specific terms are important in this model and will be discussed as follows:
5.1 Community:
Community in this context is seen as a local community, a small area, rural community
or any community of interest. It can also be a group of people who share physical and
social space. PAR helps the community to create informal social support networks with
the inclusion of a professional helper to prevent or cure a problem that is present and perhaps persistent within that area (Schurink, 1998:407).
5.2 Community participation
.Community participation can be defined as a sense of belonging, a commitment to common goals and a willingness to take responsibility for oneself and others. It is a readiness
to share and interact in a group process. Participatory action research requires a major
shift in attitudes and behaviors related to power. These may include the pursuit for emancipation, liberation, partnership, participation, the fight for social injustices, as well as the
embracing of diversity, social awareness and equity (Beresford & Evans, 1999).
5.3 Engagement and mobilization
Participants become active agents in the process of creating knowledge, reaching objectives that have been discussed together and solving problems (Van Rooyen, 1998)
The need for mobilization as a development strategy comes from the failure of the individualistic approach to alleviate human suffering and to bring fulfillment to people in
large parts of the community.
5.4 Capacity building
Capacity building refers to the potential and capacity of the people in a community an to
the process of assisting them to develop skills at various level in order to become experts
of their own development and be able to manage their own future. It is a learning process
that is based on a flexible, sustainable and skills training (Marais., Muthien., & Jansen van
Rensberg, 2001).
5.5 Empowerment
Empowerment is the process of increasing personal, interpersonal, socio-economic and
political power. This enables people to improve their situation. Participatory action
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research in this aspect tries to empower deprived and disadvantaged people with research
skills so that they can identify and transform their situation for themselves. This is an ongoing learning process. For everyone involved (Nantel, 2001). The researcher here is not
only the research expert who shares skills but also the co-learner who recognizes and benefit from the skills and knowledge of the group members (McNicoll, 1999).
PAR model then becomes a tool for action and for increasing human knowledge.. People
are empowered to become involved in all aspects of a project and are enabled to take
control of their own live (Bless & Higson-Smith, 2000). “The focus is based on a particular problem facing communities, who attempt to use research, and the resulting action, as
a tool to bring about social change, thus improving the quality of life of the communities
concerned” (Bless & Higson-Smith, 2000: 56).
The collective action as stated in PAR is designed in order to bring about long term solutions to community problems. Together as equal partners, the problem and its underlying
causes be it socio-economic, political or cultural factors are investigated.
The role of a researcher is to become catalytic, supportive, non-dominant, and facilitative.
5.6 Self-reliance
Self- reliance is a driving force for energizing the community. It creates awareness of one’s
creative assets, confidence in one’s ability to solve problems, the courage to take on challenging tasks and the stamina to make sustained efforts to accomplish them. The goal of
PAR is to help community members to become independent and empowered to help its
members to attain agreed collective objectives of the project (Schurink, 1998).
Participatory action research is a summarily, an active, participating, capacity building,
involving, encouraging, mobilizing, and enabling research procedure in which the toal
community and the researcher are equal partners. The main aims are to ascertain collective generation of knowledge, the planning and achievement of jointly set objectives and
to be empowered in order to act effectively in their own interest. This ultimately will lead
to the enhancement of the community social functioning, its self-reliance and the
improvement of the quality of life of its members and the overall betterment and wellbeing of the total community (De Vos, 2002).
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6.
The characteristics of research
Hesser-Bibber and Leavy, (2006) identified the following important characteristics of
research;
It is geared to problem solution (what is the problem);
•
•
It requires careful observation and description (how it is done;
•
PAR seeks a holistic understanding and better ways of achieving change within the
viewpoint of the disadvantaged themselves. This create a more accurate, critical
reflection of social reality that understand human potential and mobilize human
resources in order to solve problems;
•
The process is based on the principle of self-development where people must
organize themselves into action;
•
Is based on observable empirical data (which data have been taken into account);
•
Requires the collection of new data/ information (like how many and of which);
•
Requires carefully designed procedures (PAR which have been used);
•
Requires expertise (is the researcher well trained);
•
PAR functions on a multidisciplinary and shared common understanding where all
disciplines or other professionals concerned should be involved;
•
Requires patient, dedicated and enthusiastic work;
•
Strives to have objective findings;
Endeavour’s to predict;
•
•
Requires careful taking of notes and reporting;
•
Support from the government, the business sector and the community is important
and it could be in the form of finances, infrastructure or human resources;
The community is enabled to be accountable for the progress made with the
•
project and should also manage its own resources;
•
The researcher and community members should be equal partners in the research
process and community members should actively participate in solutions of their
own problems;
The researcher can assist to initiate the project, do the ground work for the
•
project in the community through consultation, evaluation, promotion of
participant involvement, organizing meetings and channeling the action to be
taken;
PAR projects should be implemented in such a way that a community should have
•
a sense of ownership of a project. This will assist them to be able to shape the
needed services as required. People should be assisted to develop their full
potential.
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This model focuses on capacity building that works towards competency, dignity
and a desire for growth and participation
The process of collaboration, mobilization, empowerment, self-realization and
community solidarity are important in the PAR model.
The ultimate goal of PAR is to improve self-esteem, self-reliance and selfdetermination.
Community members must also be encouraged to reflect critically on the findings
and make adjustments if necessary. Action must be based on the approved
findings of the particular project.
There should an ongoing careful monitoring of the project, open communication
and commitment to participation and action are important to the participatory
process.
The understanding of social injustices and problem solving within communities
within the process is critical and important to the PAR model.
Scientists have agreed to classify all these steps and other relevant aspects of research in
four steps, namely, planning, data collection, analysis and interpretation (which usually
take place simultaneously) and reporting. The rest of this module is also devoted to these
steps.
7.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Principles of Participatory Research
Participatory research involves a range of powerless groups of people who are
exploited, poor, oppressed and marginalized
It involves the full and active participation of the community in the entire research
process
The subject of the research (research project) originates in the community itself
and the problem is defined, analyzed and solved by the community
The main goal/ aim is the radical transformation of social reality and the
improvement of the lives of the people themselves
The beneficiaries of the research are the members of the community
Through the process of participatory research, a greater awareness of the people’s
own resources can be created
Communities can be mobilized for self-reliant development
It is seen as a more scientific method of research in that the participation of the
community in the research process facilitates or give a more accurate and
authentic or evidence- based analysis of social reality
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The researcher becomes a committed participant and a learner in the process of
research (Compton, Galaway & Cournoyer, 2005).
8.
The process of participatory action research
Action research as defined involves engaging repeated cycles of diagnosing, planning,
implementing, and collecting and analyzes data outcomes. Outcomes are discussed with
community members, reaching conclusions and defining new sets of action plans.
Participatory action research also lead to a development of a system that is continuously
learning from experiences, learning on how to learn and create conditions , structures,
processes, and culture that support and foster learning. Denzin and Lincon, (2000) states
that in PAR the process is likely to be flexible, fluid, open and responsive as compared to
other research procedures. The following are guide lines that nform the PAR procedure:
8.1 Introduction to the community
Initial phase
The community may become aware of a particular problem in a community and may
approach the researcher to assist to identify and formulate the problem. In some cases a
health worker or a social worker may identify the problem within a particular community and ask for the assistance of the researcher. Ideally the request for action research project should come from members of a community who are faced with the problem.
Whatever the case may be contact with the community should be made at grass root level
and entry into the community must be negotiated.
Role of the researcher
The researcher should meet with the representatives of the community generate interest in
the project and in this way trust will be generated between the researcher and the community. All members of the community should be provided with equal opportunity to
share ideas about the project. All ethical aspects of research should be considered and
monitored throughout the total process. Ethical aspects are namely, informed consent,
deception, violation of privacy, and others. Debriefing of the community after the completion of the project IS A MUST and very important in PAR (Babbie, 2001).
The primary objective/ aim of this phase is to develop networks by members of the community. Their responsibility is to develop a purpose, mission and goals and for initiating
and managing projects and work activities. There should be a shared understanding of the
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basic issue or problem. The members have to devise and construct means on how to
relate to each other as they work together to influence key aspects of the external environment. There should be a shared vision that is line with the larger environment or community. The role of networks is to define their network goals and participate directly in
devising and making means of developing the system and each project must tailor or
inform the process to meet development goals and contextualized requirements of the
specific situation.
8.2 Problem identification and statement
In order to have a clear picture of the problem, information should be collected about the
problem situation and where the problem is. The researcher has to establish working relationships with the structures within the community and those of community leaders.
There should be clarity about the exact nature of the problem and political control should
be identified. All role players should then decide how to go about with the project.
Role of the researcher
The researcher should set a time frame within which the project should be completed in
line with the agreement of the community. There should be ongoing involvement of all
and working relationships should be treated with outmost respect and care.
8.3 Goals and objectives
Goals and objectives at this stage must be identified and the researcher should also be
aware of the government policy. There should be careful planning to accommodate everybody and all interests. All groups must work together to find a solution to the problem and
to achieve all the various goals that must be set in a contract. The whole team must work
together to break the project down into manageable tasks. There should be allocation of
responsibility for each of these tasks and these must be attached to the various participants.
8.4 Planning
During this stage, the researcher should explore and affirm the strengths, skills and weaknesses within the community. The research questions for the investigation should now
undergo refinement so that everybody involved in the study knows exactly what is expected from them. They should also be made aware of what of what they can contribute to the
agreed upon strategies for data collection and analysis. To be able to reach an agreement
and mutual understanding might require long and patient discussion. This will assist in
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determining what has to be evaluated and how it will be evaluated at a later stage.
8.5 Negotiation
Negotiation should happen between the researcher and the democratically elected representatives of the community in order to reflect accurately the will of the majority of people. Together they will investigate all aspects of the problem, add on their understanding
of the whole problem and develop relevant strategies for change. Everybody must be given
equal opportunity to be involved in the process and group dynamics and group processes be observed by the researcher.
The researcher should be prepared to learn from the process and with the people, and
have to be sensitive, adaptable, patient and emphatic and have a flexible attitude. There
should be critical reflection on the process from time to time and appropriate adjustments.
The initiative, commitment and drive of the process should all the time come from the
community and not solely from the researcher. The community should assume ownership
of the total process.
8.6 Data collection techniques
According to Weyers (2001) a variety of data collection techniques can be used in the participatory action research model and the following possible group formats for gathering
data are mentioned:
•
Community forums. These are also known as community meetings and they make
provision for large groups of up to 50 participants. The aim of these group sessions is to
provide a battle of ideas that will assist to gain a better understanding of the problem in
question from the community perspective. This also assists to create awareness among the
community of these issues. Issue-raising technique, brainstorming session will assist the
community to discuss issue without any criticism. All ideas could be written on a flipchart
and be discussed one by one. The forum can also be divided into few small groups, each
with a leader, who will be requested to give feedback at a plenary meeting. Community
forums should be well planned and be planned in advance.
Nominal groups. This is a small group technique that is composed of ten members.
•
It can be used when the needs of the community have been prioritized by the way of community self-survey and specific community views are required for further action or planning. Further, a nominal group can be a section of the original community forum that con-
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sists of specific people interested in or involved with a particular section of the problem
under investigation.
•
Workshops. A workshop usually caters for larger group than the community
forum, but it targets specific interest groups like school teachers in the community. It normally happens after there has been a preliminary research that has been completed and a
framework has been devised that requires refining to fit a specific community preferences.
Workshops can be with participatory assessment techniques such as ranking, scoring,
mapping, and diagramming techniques. A reciprocal learning process between the
researcher- practitioner and community members should exists. Participants should also
be sensitive to their situation and be encouraged to form their own action strategies and
structures.
•
Focus groups. A focus group is used when a small group has been selected of
eight people to twelve people. The group should be homogeneous, should apply their
expertise and knowledge and should focus on the area of concern. In-depth probing
should take place and quality solutions must be obtained. The researcher may use more
than one focus group to enhance the quality of the results.
•
Storytelling. Storytelling is associated with the narrative approach in therapy
where every member of the group tells his own story by giving an account of his experiences and demonstrates his own view on the topic. The story could be based on diary
notes or be recounted from memory and may give details of the history of the problem.
•
Drama. Drama or theatre means that a member or members of a group act out
their story instead of telling it to the community. Spectators in the group may interpret
meanings and comment on themes and patterns according to their perceptions of the
drama. Every member of the group may take a turn in acting and observing, in order to
gain different perspectives (Babbie, 2001).
•
Questionnaires and interviews. An initial modest pilot questionnaire may be provided for the first approximation of the problem and the perceptions of the community
members. After capturing the results, this may result to move to an extensive set of interviews. After defining the questions to ask, a sample may be selected to obtain the most
heterogeneous responses possible, to provide members with for personal catharsis on
important issues, to gather abundant, diverse and extreme information.
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•
Roundtable debates may be used to focuses on problematic issues like finance,
equality, solidarity, authority and power, cooperation and others.
Ancillary to this process is the collection and analyses of abundant existing infor•
mation in the form of minutes of the various social bodies, documents and others. Through
this process, shared themes will inform the plan of action. (De Vos,et al 2002)
8.6.2 Participant observation
Most commonly, the Masupatsela cadre will be confronted with an area of life that one
has no experience on, and one need to jump into the situation with no expectations at all
except for those that are developed with community participation. Allow the culture to
engrave itself on the tabula rasa (brain) of an open and eager mind of the learner.
•
Write down everything or as close to it as possible, and do not assume that you
understand the meanings of actions around you as the actors intend and under
stand them. The key aspect is that behavior is contextual and every community
develops unique cultural ways of communicating or sharing a negotiated plan of
action which the learner has not been privy to.
•
Stay in the background so as to minimize reactive effects of your presence and be
patient as the actors will socialize you into their culture and this will assist
•
Participatory research may also imply the researcher do not enter the community
with the predetermined problem that has been selected, let the problem emerge
naturally and from the actors themselves (Healy, 2001).
1.
•
Direct involvement with community and elements of action and participation
The research cycle starts with the identification of the problem or issue to be
studied as well as review of the relevant knowledge.
•
Establish a steering committee in collaboration with the research team, members
of the network and several outside stakeholders during all phases of development
•
The committee should be representative of community leaders, external stake
holders and members of the research team.
•
Ground rules should be established for the development process and results of the
meeting should add details to the plan of action and devise a tentative process for
visiting and collection of data from each participant
A drafted interview schedule or questionnaire must be discussed and modified.
•
•
There should be work out of logistics and scheduling of participants visits
•
A continuous developed working relationship among members must be encouraged (Hakim, 2000; Neuman, 2000).
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8.6.1 Implementation of data collection techniques
During this phase the nature and context of the community problem must be clarified
through the use of research. Weyers (2001) mentions that data collection techniques may
include the following: issue –raising, community self-survey and participatory assessment
techniques.
The needs and resources of the community have to be systematically assessed as the information will guide the process. A pilot study also need to be conducted as it will help the
researcher to be aware of the total situation and goals of the research and course of action
will be clarified.
8.7 Analysis of data
The data collected has to be carefully analyzed and categorized and put into themes. So
that it can be evaluated. A proper link should be made between the final aims and objective of the project, and all possible agendas in order to accommodate them all.
8.8 Evaluation
The data will be evaluated in a manner that will assist the researcher in writing a research
project of high quality and that will also be of interest to potential readers. Evaluation
should always be part of the process that has to check whether the goals have been met.
It should also include the level of skills and empowerment of people that has been developed and how the community has benefitted through participation.
8.9 Field report writing
A brief report synthesis has to be a joint process of writing the field report. This may
involve a process of internalization and conceptualization and the whole team is required
to make the greatest personal effort. Its objective is to provide immediate feedback, taking cognizant of reflections from different levels of the organization and outlining orientations, objectives and future action plans.
After evaluation of the data, the information has to be written up in a form of a research
report. According to De Vos et al, (2002) a participatory action research report will normally consist of the following headings:
•
Background information;
•
Research questions and objectives;
•
Review of literature;
Reasons for choosing participatory action research method;
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•
•
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Stakeholders
Processing and recording of data;
Findings;
Conclusions and recommendations.
8.10 Action plan
The development of the programme of action follows after the provision of the research
project. The research process informs some kind of action that has to be taken jointly by
the action-research partners. Persuasion at time has to be used as a power strategy for
political action and this will assist to develop and finalize self-help programmes for and
by the community itself.
8.11 Evaluation of the action outcomes
After the action plan has been implemented, the results of the action are assessed and a
further period of research can begin. At times it may be necessary to redesign the original
action undertaken and this process will depend on the results of research project. Thus,
action and research continues to be an alternate process in the solution of the community problems. The action part of the process keeps the research relevant, initiates further
research and implementation of research findings, while the research part guides and evaluates the process.
9.Advantages of the participatory action research model
Bless &Higson-Smith (2000) cites several advantages of the PAR model and are:
PAR lead to action as it motivate communities to be directly involved in a
•
permanent process of action;
•
It can be most relevant and flexible for working with people;
It is a hands- on procedure and practice orientated;
•
•
In PAR the expert role of the researcher is to stimulate the community and guide
the change;
•
The research process will effect change or transformation that will be part of the
solution;
•
The goal of PAR is to make change a self-generating and self-maintaining process
that continues after the research has been completed;
•
The researcher gains first- hand experience of the problem experienced by
particular communities and of the effectiveness of different solutions. ;
The members of the community are empowered to solve their own problems;
•
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It engages the community in a collaborative relationship and the community
becomes committed to resolve;
The community members also become aware and learn more about their own
problems and resources as well as problem-solving strategies that could be used;
It is of special value to developing countries where communities are in great need
of immediate solutions to problems;
Individuals, organizations and communities learn to acquire self- confidence, aids
communication between partners and enable them to obtain resources that are
needed to function more effectively in future;
This model provides a bridge between research and practice and is a knowledge
generating tool that informs practice intervention;
A multi-disciplinary approach is usually needed in the PAR model because some
problems may arise that may need joint solutions by various disciplines;
The researcher is also constantly challenged by events, ideas, and arguments
raised by the project participants;
The involvement of many team members and their valuable contribution to the
project makes it more open and questions asked may lead to sharper formulation
of research goals and more productive research;
It is empowering to the people and the researcher in turn may be motivated,
encouraged and rejuvenated.
Summary
10.
Participatory action research model emphases participation and involvement of all roleplayers and this may include more or less every member of the community. This model is
committed to social justice and equity especially in a powerless and disenfranchised communities. It calls for equal involvement by and responsibility of the researcher and the
community. The community work process and the research process become compatible
in this model. Terms such as community, mobilization, capacity building, empowerment,
human well-being, self-reliance and community participation play a great role in the participatory action research model.
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Bibliography
Babbie, E. 2001. The practice of social research, 9th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth.
Beresford, P. & Evans, C. 1999. Research and empowerment. British Journal of Social
Work, 29 (5), 671-677.
Bless, C. & Higson- Smith, C. 2000. Fundamentals of social research methods. Cape Town:
Juta.
Compton, B.R., Galaway, B., & Cournoyer, B.R. 2005. Social Work Processes, 7th ed.
USA: Brooks/ Cole.
Green, S. 1998. Community practice: opportunities for community building. Social
Work/Maatskaplike werker, 34 (4): 362-369.
Hakim, C. 2000. Research design: successful designs for social and economic research.
London: Routledge.
Healy, K. 2001. Participatory action research and social; work: a critical appraisal.
International Social work, 44 (10: 93-105).
Marais, H.C., Muthien, Y., Jansen van Rensburg, N.S. 2001. Sustainable social development: critical issues. Pretoria: Network.
McNicoll, P. 1999. Issues in teaching participatory action research. Journal of Social Work
Education, 35(1): 51-62.
Nantel, G. 2001. Community Based Nutrition Programming (CBNP). Lecture delivered at
Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education. Potchefstroom, 29 March.
Neuman, W.L. 2000. Social research methods: qualitative and quantitative approaches,
3rd ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Reason, P. & Brabury, H. 2001. Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and
Practice. London: Sage Publications
Reason, P., & Torbert, W.R. 2001. ‘Towards a transformational science: a further look at the
scientific merits of action research’. London: Sage Publications.
Van Rooyen, C. 1998. Democratising social work research. In Gray, M. (Ed.),
Developmental social work in South Africa: theory and practice. Johannesburg: David
Phillip.
Weyers, M.L. 2001. The theory and practices of community work: a South African perspective. Potchefstroom: Keurkopie.
Whyte, W. F. 1991. Participatory Action Research. London: Sage Publications.
De Vos, A.S.., Strydom, H., Fouche, C.B., & Delport, C.S.L. 2002. Research at Grass Roots:
For the social sciences and human service professions, 2nd ed. South Africa: Van Schaik.
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PRACTICAL COMPONENT
Practical Component- Session A
1.
What is your understanding of participatory action research
As workers and citizens we encounter research everyday and we have all taken part in
research, for example, we have all taken part in the national census. Some of us have
chaired meetings where we have asked people whether they agree to a motion by a show
of hands.
Case study
This community has water and sanitation problems that result in poor health conditions
like skin problems, diarrhea and other health hazards. Consequently, there are high rates
of infancy deaths. The community wants to develop an action to address the problem to
the local municipality. Following the recommended six steps, how would you go about
with the involvement of the community in the work to achieve these goals?
1.
•
•
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Problem identification
they agree that there is a problem
they ask themselves what cause or causes that create the situations behind the
problem?
Can the situation be changed by advocacy work? If yes, then you all need to
proceed with the following.
2 . Gathering information
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Gather as much as you can information about the situation and its causes. Such a
gathering process might involve research.
Identify possible solutions. This might involve research on options
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Develop an idea about favorable or negative opportunities
•
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Develop a clear idea of sources of support.
2.
•
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Taking an action- based decisions
You all agree to act.
3.
•
Planning
Create a clear plan of action that involves variety of processes such as lobbying,
consultation, demonstrating, popularizing and challenging.
2.
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Taking an action-based decision
Use action- based roles.
3.
•
•
•
Evaluation – which leads to new problem identification
This involves a thorough review of the outcomes of the action
Review and research the intended and unintended results of the action
Identify new problems.
Summary: This is a step –by-step interpretation of advocacy work that shows that research
may happen at various steps. Also, that other peoples’ research and policy documents
based on other people’s research may assist the process. The steps outlined above are best
applicable for what can be described as “conflict processes”.
Activity 1. What is research and what is information?
Purpose: to define research and information and explain how they are used in advocacy,
lobbying and mass-based campaigns.
Material: pen and paper
Time: 30 mins
Procedure:
Step 1: on your own write down what you think research is.
Step 2: in pairs write down what you believe information is.
Step 3: in your same pairs explain how you would use information and research
differently in advocacy, lobbying and mass-based campaign processes.
Comments: How you process information and what you do with it is an all important
research skill. How you record at the start of fieldwork determines the reliability of your
data in a very big way. Brilliant research needs people to know about it and be accessible. Do the following quick exercise.
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Activity 2: Learning how to listen to, filter and record information
Purpose: To develop listening and recording skills
Materials: pen and paper
Time: 30mins
Procedure: change pairs and answer these questions
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It is important to phrase research questions carefully. Things to check for are:
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Does the question reflect the purpose of the research?
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Is there more than one question in the question?
How wide or narrow is the question?
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Is the question over ambitious considering available resources?
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Is the question ambiguous at all?
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Do the term or concepts used need operation definitions? (It is important for you
to give operational definitions of the concepts you use in your research questions).
Why is it often difficult to find information?
How do you deal with the problem of too much information?
Share some examples of such difficulties with your problem?
Activity 5: Understanding research as a process
A plenary discussion will follow. During this discussion try to note the key points of what
was said. This is to examine listening and recording skills.
Activity 3: Develop a problem statement
Purpose: To develop a problem statement for your own community
Material: OH Transparency and pens, flipchart
Time: Activity: 30mins
Plenary: 30mins
Procedure:
Step 1: Identify the issue / issues that your community is organizing around.
Step2: Use this information to develop a problem statement with the involvement of
community members.
Step3: Present the agreed upon problem statement in plenary. Keep a copy of it, as you
will be required to review it later on in the course.
Activity 4: Turn your problem statement into a research question
Purpose: To clearly identify our main research question and a number of sub-questions
that make our research more manageable.
Material: pen and paper
Time: 30mins
Procedure:
Step 1: Working in pairs or groups, refer to the problem you identified. If we had to turn
the problem into a question what would that be?
Step 2: Can this big question be sub-divided into other smaller area?
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Purpose:
Using common sense to solve problems. This exercise will encourage you
to engage logically with problems.
Materials: pen and paper
Time: 30mins
Procedure:
Step 1: What skills do you already have which you could use? List at least 5.
Step 2: Look at the topic you selected above. What do you know about the topic before
you start to look for information? Jot down points.
Step 3: What resources do you know of that could help you with this topic? Are there
resources you know of, but do not know how to access, list them?
It is vital that we see research as a process that involves many steps- some of which we
already know, some of which you will learn about this week and some which we will just
never get to, or won’t need to learn, but will find out who does know. Research is a
process that seems really hard because it seems to require so many specialized skills. But
the hardest thing about research is that there never seems to be enough time to do it properly and you always have to make choices and compromises. But let’s first look at what it
means to understand research as a process that we can ALL do.
Activity 6: Research is a process
Purpose: To develop the notion of research as process
Material: pen and paper
Time: 1 hour
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Procedure:
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How do you find out something? Refer to one of the research questions
you identified earlier and complete the following:
I want to know:……
Step one:… (you are not limited to five steps)
Step two:….
Step three:….
Step four:…
Step five:….
If you get stuck what do you do?
Maybe you know what to do but you cannot do it. What can’t you do and why? Lets discuss it. What is an alternative strategy?
You should now be able to see how you have moved through problem statements, to purpose, formulate research questions and begun to find ways to collect information.
Activity 7:
Purpose:
Develop a campaign objective
To develop a campaign objective for your community
Materials: Pen and paper
Time: Activity: 30min Plenary: 30min
Procedure:
Step 1: In your community groups, answer the following questions, bearing the
problem statement you have just developed in mind. The questions are as follows:
What do you want to change?
•
•
Who needs to change their behavior?
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How do you want these people to change their behavior?
By when would you like this to have changed?
•
•
Also consider what would be happening differently if the objectives have been
met?
Step2: Now take all these answers and put them into one statement individually. Then provide feedback, either in task groups of 5 where the group makes a summary of the main
issues of the problem in developing objectives in plenary.
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Note:
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Good data based on research or statistics about the problem is important. Knowing
the true extent of the problem will help you choose advocacy objectives that are
relevant and specific. If data is not available or not enough, collect your own
before you choose objectives.
•
Check if the objective/objectives are achievable. People on the ground will be
more likely to join your effort if they see from the start that there is reasonable
chance of success.
•
People must be interested in and supportive of the goal/ objectives and care
enough about it to act.
•
Will you be able to raise money or other resources to support your work on the
goal/ objectives?
•
Can you clearly identify the target decision-makers? What are their names or
positions?
•
Are the goals / objectives easy to understand?
•
Does the advocacy objective have a clear time frame that is realistic? If there are
no external time frames, set clear and realistic time frames to achieve your objectives.
Activity 8:
Purpose:
Who needs to change their behavior?
To consider as a community, what is it that we are trying to do, how are
we trying to do it, and the obstacles/forces we need to overcome in order
to achieve our aims.
Materials:
flipchart and pens
Time:
Activity:30 mins
Plenary:
45 mins
Procedure: Work systematically and work through these issues:
•
•
•
•
•
Who needs to change their behavior?\what structures or forces do you engage
with?
How do you engage with them?
How are these structured or forces organized?
Whose interest do they represent?
How do these forces go about to entrench the status quo?
Note:
•
You need to know key decision makers
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•
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Know the key committees and how they work
Know the decision making process, rules, procedures, and protocol of the
decision making process.
Activity 9:
Indentify areas of intervention and ways of bringing about change
Purpose:
To identify how you would try to bring about a change in behavior and
how you would do this.
Materials:
pen and paper
Plenary: 30 mins
Time:
Activity: 30mins
Procedure:
Materials: pen and paper
Time: Activity: 30 mins
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Plenary: 30 mins
Procedure: Using the different methods identified in Activity7 and the notes for this section as well as the answer you gave to the question. How do I get these people to change
their behavior? Plan activities that will promote desired change in terms of your organization and its objectives. Use the following heading: “ACTION”, “RESOURCES
REQUIRED”, “TIMEFRAME”, “PERSON RESPONSIBLE”.
Step: Look at your campaign objective and your answer to the question:
•
Who needs to change their behavior? You may have mentioned some of the organs
of government or private sector players. Now that you have more insight into government
processes and structures, look at the chart developed in the previous exercise and identify exactly where you would try to bring about a change in behavior and specify how you
would go about doing this.
•
If, in your campaign objective, you wish to change the behavior of other types of
organizations or institutions add a card/s to show this and state where you would
intervene in this case.
Activity 10: Write a letter to the newspaper
Purpose: To learn how to write letters to the press and key decision-makers.
Materials: flipchart and pens
Time: Activity: 30 mins
Plenary: 30 mins
Procedure:
Step 1: In your organizational groups, refer to your campaign objectives and question
“who needs to change their behavior”. Identify the person to whom you would like to
direct your letter to. Write a letter to this person using what you have learnt in this session
to help you.
Step 2: And now write a letter to the editor of your daily newspaper using the tips you
have been given to help you.
Activity 10: Bring about change (organization specific)
Purpose: To plan activities that will promote change in your own organization
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NOTES
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NOTES
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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
COMPILED BY
MS SADI LUKA
SUMMARY
The purpose of this Module is to introduce the learners to Sustainable Development and
the goals and principles that underpin this concept. It is also to create awareness amongst
the youth of the important role they can and should play in promoting sustainable development.
All over the world, young people are working on environment, development and social
justice issues; youth have already demonstrated that they play an important role in building sustainability. Sustainable development involves new ways of thinking and new ways
of doing things. The potential lies in young people to generate these changes. The responsibility for the path we take in the future lies in the hands of today's youth, whether we
continue the current rates of destruction, or create a more equitable and peaceful society.
The objectives of the Module are:
•
To build a sound knowledge base and understanding of the concept of sustainable
development
•
To develop capacity for translation of Sustainable Development goals into
effective strategies for Sustainable Community Development;
•
To create awareness on the relationship between poverty to sustainable
development
•
To establish the role of Indigenous Knowledge Systems in sustainable
development; and
•
To develop appropriate skills and capacity amongst the youth to increase the
critical mass for national service and implementation of national anti-poverty
programmes and projects.
THEME 1:
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Didactical Unit 1: What is Sustainable Development
" Development does not start with goods; it starts with people and their education, organization and discipline...development...can succeed only if it's carried forward as a broad
, "popular movement of reconstruction", with primary emphasis on the full utilization of
the drive, enthusiasm, intelligence and labour power of everyone"
E.F.Schumacker
Overview:
The purpose of this didactical unit is to introduce the learners to Sustainable Development
and the goals and principles that underpin this concept. It is also to create awareness
amongst the youth of the important role they can and should play in promoting sustainable development.
All over the world, young people are working on environment, development and social
justice issues; youth have already demonstrated that they play an important role in building sustainability. Sustainable development involves new ways of thinking and new ways
of doing things. The potential lies in young people to generate these changes. The responsibility for the path we take in the future lies in the hands of today's youth, whether we
continue the current rates of destruction, or create a more equitable and peaceful society.
Objectives:
•
•
•
To introduce participants to ‘sustainable development’
To ensure that participants understand the basic elements of sustainable
development
To introduce key interrelated issues within the debate on sustainable development
Where does the term Sustainable Development come from?
The idea of ‘sustainable development’ was introduced, first in the World Conservation
Strategy of 1980, and then in the Brundtland Report, produced by the World Commission
on Environment and Development in 1987. The authors of these documents were among
those who called for more development, to pay for environmental protection and reduce
poverty. And here a great muddle started, because linking the two concepts – sustainabil-
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ity and development – opened the door for some to interpret the call for action as a call
for more of the same development. They argued that where there is poverty and suffering,
there is simply not enough economic growth. The track record of development-as-growth
was ignored – along with its unsustainable environmental costs. So the focus of the idea
of sustainability shifted – from sustaining living resources, to sustaining development.
To analyze the evolution of sustainable development conception, a number of dimensions
that can be distinguished in three stages will be used :
1.
Two-dimensional sustainability – Emphasis placed on economic and natural
environments and that the two should not limit each other but assist each other to
find new opportunities. Attention was on eco-effectiveness i.e. manufacturing and
supply of good and services not limiting possibilities to meet the requirements for
future generations e.g. recycling.
2.
Three-dimensional sustainability – Social was added to economic and
environmental resulting in domination of ecological stability and social
development
3.
Four-dimensional sustainability – Institutional dimension was added to the three
dimensions. This dimension recognized democracy and properly functioning
institutions as essential elements for sustainable development.
Defining Sustainable Development
Sustainable Development was defined in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment
and Development (Brundtland Commission 1987) as “Development that meets the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs”.
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Dimensions of Sustainable Development
Environmental dimension
In order to achieve a greater measure of economic sustainability, attention must be paid
to the environmental dimension. It is also critical to note the interrelatedness of culture
and the environment. Most of the people at the local level, in particular the poor, base
their livelihoods on their local/traditional knowledge of herbs and nutritional plants in the
local area. This reliance of people on nature for survival draws to a greater or lesser extent
on the natural and physical environments.
Economic dimension
The growth of economies and their structural transformation have always been recognized
as being at the core of development. They still are the most important preconditions for
the fulfillment of human needs and for any lasting improvements in living conditions.
However, within the sustainable development debate, economic growth is approached
differently promoting the view that resources should be used optimally and that the limits of the natural environment should be noted. This means that the need to change consumption patterns of scarce resources and look for complementary resources to increase
the quality of life is inevitable.
Social dimension
Both the economy and society exist within the environment and in a situation where there
is no balance between the two; the environment is often negatively affected. The social
dimension of sustainable development is closely related to poverty as sustained poverty
may lead to sustained exploitation of natural resources as the poor are not able to exercise sufficient choices resulting in pressure on the natural environment. However, this
does not mean that pressure on the environment is caused by the poor only.
Activity 1:
Sustainable development is the outcome of a balanced integration of interrelated processes of development at the local level, viz. economic development, social development and
ecological development. Development is sustainable when basic environmental, economic and social services are delivered equally to all, without endangering or threatening the viability of the systems upon which these services depend.
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i.
Compile a portfolio that would tell a story about sustainable development in your
community. Refer to the three (3) dimensions of sustainable development.
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THEME II:
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AT A LOCAL LEVEL
Didactical Unit 2:
Sustainable Communities
“New habits can help us improve our communities and maintain a high quality of life
while maintaining and enhancing the natural environment on which our lives depend”
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Understanding Sustainability
Sustainability is a long range view of the community over a period of years which identify the links among the community’s economic, environmental and social capitals, while
considering the carrying capacity of the community
Influences of Sustainability
Hart Environmental Data
Overview:
Many communities face an increasing numbers of problems that includes: severe environmental degradation, pollutions, water, energy and food shortages, solid waste accumulation, housing affordability and availability, burden of disease and poverty.
Sustainable Communities are:
•
•
•
Environmentally Sound: Decision-making focuses on reducing the impacts of
population growth and development on natural resources and the environment.
Economically Productive: Community members make local capital investments
that will sustain local human and natural resources and yield adequate financial
returns to those investments.
Socially Just: Equitable access to resources and decision-making processes foster
the distribution of foods and benefits across all sectors to the community.
Objectives:
The objective of this module is to ensure that participants have a clear
•
understanding of the following:
•
Sustainable community development
Characteristic features and values of a sustainable community
•
•
Sustainable community based organizations
•
What influences sustainability
•
How to measure sustainability
Importance and skills of assessing sustainability
•
•
The community development process
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Three major influences of sustainability are the economy, the environment and equity
which drive the decisions and choices made by the community and their impact on the
future.
Economy refers to the management and efficient use of resources to meet household and
community needs. The local economy includes formal and informal economies which
assist the community to meet its needs.
Ecology is the pattern of relationships between living things and their environment. Most
of the community’s choices affect the environment and it is thus critical to assess the
actions of the community to encourage preservation and enhancement of natural
resources for future generations.
Equity refers to the fairness in which citizens share in the benefits of the community’s successes. This includes fairness of relationships between people, groups and generations of
people. Equity is said to exist where there is fairness in decision making and where opportunity is granted to all to participate in equally in decisions, activities and benefits.
Indicators to Measure Sustainability
An indicator is a way to measure, indicate, point out or point to an issue or condition with
exactness. A community indicator shows the extent to which a community has progressed
to its future state. The community must be involved in the identification of values that
would be used as the base for measuring success.
Features of relevant indicators:
Relevance: The indicator must fit the purpose
•
•
Easy to understand: Be easily understood by people who are not experts
•
Reliable: can be trusted
Based on accessible data: Information that is available and timely
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Sustainable Indicators
•
Helps practitioners/communities to understand where they are, which way they
are going, how far they are from reaching their destination.
•
Can identify a problem before it gets out of control and assists in terms of how to
address the problem
•
Can identify links between the economy, society and the environment – identify
where problems are and what corrective action is required
•
Can identify the interconnectedness between the economy, society and the
environment.
Sustainable Community Development
SCD involves citizens, local governments, community organizations and businesses in a
cooperative effort to find sustainable approaches and solutions towards improved and sustained quality of life.
Local communities are very important participants in the management of their resources
which include physical, natural, social, financial and human. Sustainable community
development depends on local development strategies that are based on an understanding of the relationship between identified constraints and opportunities at the local level.
Sustainable community development seeks to ensure the following:
•
•
•
•
Social mobilization aimed at institutional development/strengthening, economic
development and environmental preservation
Organization of communities into effective community based organizations with
the capacity to mobilize their own resources and resolve their own development
problems
Capacity building and skills development of CBOs to make informed decisions
about issues in their communities
Technical support and guidance provided to CBOs as required
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Key Objectives of Sustainable Community Development
•
Environmental Management
•
Implementation of natural resource conservation and management activities
Promotion of environmental education and awareness
•
•
Promotion of biodiversity conservation
•
Economic Development
•
Promotion of savings, credit mobilization and micro-enterprise development for
CBO members
•
Establishment of institutional support for functional community-based groups eg.
Farmers, self-help cooperatives such as burial societies; agricultural based
industries etc
•
Enhancement of local production systems
•
Establishment of market linkages and market information systems
•
Social Development
•
Empowerment of functional CBOs
•
Promotion of education through literacy classes and awareness activities
•
Promotion of capacity building of communities to identify, plan and implement
small scale development schemes that are environmentally sound such as health
care, sanitation, drinking water, cleaning school buildings
Establish local information systems
•
•
Good Governance
•
Community leadership and engagement
•
Institutional capacity building of CBOs to promote financial and management
accountability
•
Community participation in the planning process
•
Community participation in monitoring and evaluation
•
Community participation in impact assessment
These activities converge and create a synergetic effect. Each one complements the other
and contributes towards sustaining the environment, the resource base and the
community.
What is a sustainable community?
A sustainable community is that which is capable to manage the utilization of its resources
and to maintain their carrying capacities for future generations. Sustainable communities
are ?creative and forward-looking which are important building blocks for an innovative
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economy. They are cohesive and therefore able to find effective solutions to local problems. They have capable leadership who ensure that development interventions planned
and pursued are appropriate to their own values and aspirations. They are informed and
responsible, always looking for practical ways of achieving sustainable development.
Social capital is an important element of a sustainable community. It is people in society, their skills, education, health as well as their capacity to participate in decisions that
affect their lives. At the community level, social capital is the product of the effective operation of institutions, networks and interactions that facilitate co-operation for mutual benefit.
A sustainable community plans together and owns the processes, outputs and outcomes
of the development plans and actions. It acknowledges the strengths of local/traditional
knowledge and technologies as a livelihood strategy of many rural and poor households.
The following are other important characteristic features of strong and sustainable communities:
Capacity to give people a sense of belonging through shared values
·
Adaptability and ability to respond to adversity
· Capable and enterprising leadership
· Being able to promote social trust, participation and mutual responsibility
· Capable to generate resources from inside and outside the community
· Ability to foster a stable, innovative local/regional economy that provides employment
· Ability to find opportunities and generates wealth, and
· Capable to protect and effectively manage their local environment.
Sustainable communities are also able to identify or attract the relevant resources and
capacities they require to meet most local needs, play a major role in protecting their environment, respond creatively to changing circumstances, and manage their own development.
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Principles of Sustainable Communities:
•
The community recognizes that growth occurs within the limits of the carrying
capacity of the environment;
The community values cultural diversity;
•
•
The community has respect for other forms of life and supports biodiversity;
•
Community members have shared values;
•
The community exercises ecological decision-making;
Decision-making and planning is done in a flexible and open manner that
•
includes the perspectives from the social, health, economic, and environmental
sectors of the community;
•
The community makes best use of local efforts and resources
•
The community uses renewable and reliable sources of energy
•
The community minimizes harm to the natural environment
•
The community does not compromise the sustainability of other communities
by its activities
•
The community does not compromise the sustainability of future generations by
its activities.
Sustainable Community Development Processes
There is a sequence of key steps which are not prescriptive but describe the stages in the
community development process. It is not expected that all communities should go
through all the steps and some may take place concurrently.
General Stages in a Community Development Process
a.
Community Preparedness
Not all communities are interested in, or prepared for, undertaking a process of community development. Prepared communities are motivated, will have strong local leadership
and a sense of ownership. One or all of these ingredients are necessary for successful
community development.
b.
Felt and Shared Concerns
Community development processes develops from a situation where issues and concerns
are felt and shared by individuals and the broader community. Concerned and frustrated
people who are enthusiastic and motivated to change their situation will contribute to successful community development.
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c.
Stimulus
There are different situations that can act as a stimulus for community development e.g. a
local crisis such as retrenchment from jobs; rising food prices and food insecurity; sharing
best practices or successes of other communities; new knowledge etc.
d.
Initial Organization and Involvement
A stimulus is often a step towards community action which brings the community together at a public meeting or forum. At this stage the community leader can invite a facilitator or a resource person to assist with suggestions, provide information and guide in terms
of how the process could unfold.
Engagement and Issues Identification
e.
Initial organization is followed by ensuring involvement and engagement of the community members to:
Identify issues and understand the existing concerns of community members
Establish how community members would like to participate. This often provides an
opportunity to establish the extent to which the community is prepared for community
development and how they would like to undertake the process. It also is an essential
ingredient to generate trust, promote community involvement and facilitates identification
of local champions for community development.
Establish the ideas that some community may be passionate about and how those ideas
can be supported along other long term community priorities.
Initial Considerations
f.
In the process of organization, the community has to ask some crucial questions that
would provide a framework of a community development process. This process is called
‘Visioning’. It is an asset-based approach to community development and an effort
towards responsive and appropriate community planning. Some of the questions are:
Where are we?
What are our concerns as a community?
How do we want our community to be?
How do we get there?
What is our role as a community?
What is the role of government and other key role players?
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g.
Purpose and Goals
The community has to develop a purpose or a broad vision and goals that are achievable,
clearly defined and articulated for a community development effort.
h.
Self Examination
This is a process of analysis which helps the community and facilitators to:
Understand and appreciate the community’s situation and existing capacity;
Re-think problems and issues, and
Identify new options
The purpose of this process is not only to gather data, but also to raise the community’s
awareness and facilitate their involvement in the re-thinking/reframing process.
i.
Interpretation and Prioritization
Analysis of data collected during the engagement and self-examination phases is done
and debated in order to identify priorities that require action either immediate or in the
medium to long-term. During the analysis of the data, patterns/trends, gaps in the data,
new ideas, issues of common interest and local champions could be identified.
Planning and Action
j.
This phase involves the development of a strategy to act on specific identified issues. Key
issues for communities in the Planning and Action process are:
-
Organization: Communities must be well organized to participate fully in the
planning and action process.
Maintaining community interest: Mechanisms to keep the community and its
leaders updated and motivated must be put in place
Celebrating success: success, whether small, needs to be recognized and
celebrated.
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ACTIVITY 2:
Assist your local community, using the Visioning Process to:
1.
Identify the broad vision of your local community (10 year vision)
2.
Develop visions in specific areas as reflected in the broad vision e.g. housing, safety, child care etc.
3.
Develop an action plan around one of the visions
4.
Determine roles of different partners and/or actors to achieve their vision (community, civil society, government etc)
5.
Develop sustainability indicators to measure progress.
6.
Identify sources of help.
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THEME III:
POVERTY AND SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS
Didactical Unit 3: Poverty and Sustainable Livelihoods
“If we want to promote sustainable development and accelerate poverty reduction in
Africa, we must focus on who the poor are, where they live and the sources of their livelihood.”
Lennart Båge
Overview:
The starting point for sustainable development is to look at poor groups not as objects, or
a burden on society, but as subjects, with the capacity to become the primary agents of
change. Instead of looking only at their needs, we should build on their strengths and in
particular their local/indigenous knowledge and resources which form an integral part of
their livelihoods. The poor, especially women, are hardworking and often effective microentrepreneurs, whether as smallholder farmers or in petty trades and crafts. They are
knowledgeable, indeed experts, on their own situation and circumstances.
Enabling these groups to use their capacities more productively is often called the empowerment of the poor. Key elements in this process of empowerment include allowing the
poor to gain a stronger voice and influence in institutions that affect them as well as promoting better access to health, education and economic services like credit and savings.
Yet empowerment will serve little purpose if the material means for increasing production
and incomes are not available to the poor.
Objectives:
•
•
•
To understand the concept of poverty and its and causes
To explain the concept of ‘sustainable livelihoods’, how livelihoods can be build
and factors that can build or impinge on livelihoods
To learn how the sustainable livelihoods approach can be applied.
Understanding Poverty
Internationally poverty is frequently defined according to monetary income. In this view,
the poor are those who fall short of an income threshold and or a certain amount of
expenditure for consumption. However, in South Africa, poverty has been seen in a
broader perspective as more than low income or low expenditure. It is seen as the denial
of opportunities and choices most basic to human development to lead a long, healthy,
creative life and to enjoy a decent standard of living, freedom, dignity, self-esteem and
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respect from others (Stats SA). The Poverty and Inequality Report prepared for the
Presidency in 1998 defined poverty as the inability to attain a minimal standard of living,
measured in terms of basic consumptive needs or the income required to satisfy them.
Poverty was seen to include alienation from the community, food insecurity, crowded
homes, usage of unsafe and inefficient forms of energy, lack of adequately paid and secure
jobs and fragmentation of the family.
Assets and capabilities play a critical role in improving individual and household social
and economic well-being. People draw on a set of mainly 5 capital assets as a basis for
their livelihoods:
•
•
Definitions of poverty are debatable. However, there is common agreement about the
degrees of poverty. These are: absolute (extreme) poverty; moderate poverty, and relative
poverty. Absolute poverty implies that households are unable to meet the basic needs for
survival. They are chronically hungry, unable to access health care, lack the amenities of
safe drinking water and sanitation, cannot afford education for some or all children, and
perhaps lack rudimentary shelter, and basic article of clothing like shoes (Sachs, 2005:
20). Moderate poverty refers to conditions of life in which basic needs are met, but just
barely. Relative poverty is generally perceived to be a household income level below a
given proportion of average national income.
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•
•
Human - the skills, knowledge, ability to labour and good health important to the
ability to pursue different livelihood strategies;
Physical - the basic infrastructure (transport, shelter, water, energy and
communications) and the production equipment and means that enable people to
pursue livelihoods;
Social - the social resources (networks, membership of groups, relationships of
trust, access to wider institutions of society) upon which people draw in pursuit of
livelihoods; indigenous resources and knowledge systems have ensured the
survival and sustainable livelihoods of indigenous and poor communities and
households;
Financial - the financial resources which are available to people (whether savings,
supplies of credit or regular remittances or pensions) and which provide them with
different livelihood options;
Natural - the natural resource stocks from which resource flows useful for
livelihoods are derived (e.g. land, water, wildlife, biodiversity,
environmental resources).
There is a notable observation with regard to the shift in thinking about poverty which
emphasized material deprivation. The new understanding of poverty has been expanded
to include vulnerability, exposure to risk, voicelessness and powerlessness. This means
that strategies to combat poverty should not be limited to economic growth and that a
broader agenda that includes the provision of targeted opportunities for the poor, building assets, facilitating empowerment and reducing vulnerabilities of the poor be adopted.
This broad understanding of poverty is aligned to the ‘sustainable livelihoods
approach’ which underpins the strategies for sustainable livelihoods.
•
What are the causes of poverty? Group Discussion
Building Livelihoods
Activity 3 (1)
Introducing ‘Sustainable Livelihoods
'A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social
resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when
it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource
base'.
•
•
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To unlock the potential of assets, the access profile of households that defines their ability to gain access to capital assets must be analyzed. . The outcome of this analysis will
reflect constraints of households and inform the development and implementation of
appropriate interventions.
•
•
•
•
Livelihood strategy - built from a series of choices over the use of these assets
Livelihood activities – Action based on the choices made by members of the
household e.g. vegetable production
Income – Goods, services and cash generated from the activities which is then
re-circulated as:
Inputs into livelihood activities;
Social payment: burial societies, insurance;
Invested to maintain or enhance the livelihood assets;
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Consumed: food, housing, clothes and all the other goods and services that
contribute to the material quality of life of the household.
Many local and external factors that influence livelihoods include markets, the
physical environment and the social and political environment.
These factors make livelihoods vulnerable to shocks and trends in these factors.
The character of these external forces represents the vulnerability context within
which the livelihood systems of different households develop, whilst the ability of
households to cope is their resilience in the light of these vulnerabilities.
Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA)
In order to promote households and community livelihoods that are sustainable, a sustainable livelihoods approach or methodology has been developed by the UNDP for the
design, implementation and evaluation of sustainable livelihoods programmes.
The SLA is a five step process described briefly as follows:
•
A participatory assessment of the risks, assets, entitlements and indigenous
knowledge base found in a particular community. These are usually manifested in
the coping and adaptive strategies pursued by men and women. Coping strategies
are often a short-term response to a specific shock such as drought. On the other
hand, adaptive strategies entail a long-term change in behavior patterns as a result
of a shock or stress. Both have implications on the composition of the assets (i.e.,
depletion, regeneration) from which they are derived;
•
Analysis of the macro, micro and sectoral policies, and governance arrangements
which impinge on people's livelihood strategies.
•
Assessment and determination of the potential contributions of modern science
and technology that complement indigenous knowledge systems in order to
improve livelihoods;
•
Identification of social and economic investment mechanisms (i.e., microfinance,
expenditures on health and education) that help or hinder existing livelihood
strategies; and
•
Making sure that the first four stages are integrated and interactive in real time.
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framework for analysis and programming from the beginning. This is especially true in
identifying not only the types of assets which people use, but also how existing livelihoods
can be strengthened with new and appropriate technologies and corresponding social and
economic investments. This results in sustainability being brought into the fold and
viewed simultaneously through environmental and socio-economic lenses.
Programme development begins not with community needs assessment but with community strengths and assets assessment. This is important in building self-esteem and selfreliance and to break the donor-recipient syndrome. Assets should include human, social,
natural and physical capital. Sustainable livelihoods analysis require an understanding of
the trade-off that occur as we invest in or transform one type of capital in another, or into
flows (income).
Activity 3
•
Group discussion on causes of poverty – Presentation to the plenary
•
What is your community’s understanding of poverty and its causes?
•
What are the indicators used by your community to identify poor households?
•
Using the community’s poverty indicators identify 5 poor households and use the
sustainable livelihoods approach to determine the following:
What makes the households vulnerable and how do they deal with their situation?
•
•
What types of assets do these households have?
•
Do they have the capacity to convert the assets to livelihood outcomes? If YES how
and if NO why?
What should be done to improve their situation?
•
•
Identify and assess at least 2 types of community based organizations (CBOs) in
your local community using the sustainable livelihoods approach with specific
focus on:
•
What makes the CBOs vulnerable and how do they deal with their situation?
What types of assets do these CBOs have?
•
•
Do they have the capacity to convert the assets to livelihood outcomes? If YES how
and if NO why?
•
What should be done to improve their situation?
The SLA, by using both participatory and policy (cross-sectoral) tools, highlights the interlinkages between livelihood systems at the micro level and the macro policies which
affect these livelihoods.
The SL approach integrates environmental, social and economic issues into a holistic
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THEME IV:
INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Didactical Unit 4: The role of Indigenous Knowledge in Sustainable Development
“Indigenous knowledge is an integral part of the culture and history of a local community. We need to learn from local communities to enrich the development process”.
James D. Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank
Overview:
“It is always the same, when I plant in straight lines, if there are mice, they start cutting at
one end and move swiftly straight down the line, and I quickly lose the whole crop. I
always replant randomly because there is a greater chance that less seeds will be found
by the mice this way” . This is an experience shared by a rural farmer who lost his crops
using modern techniques and then resorted to his indigenous knowledge which increased
his harvest.
The livelihoods of most of the poor are diverse and often complex. There is a Greek saying that “the fox has many ideas but the hedgehog has one big idea”. In this analogy of
the fox and the hedgehog, the poor are likened to ‘foxes’ because they do not have only
one source of support but several. The professional in this instance is likened to a ‘hedgehog’ with one big idea, a job as a source of livelihood. The poor engage in a diverse set
of activities, of which indigenous knowledge forms an integral part.
Since poverty is a challenge for the South African government, despite a myriad of poverty alleviation initiatives implemented, it has become crucial for the change agents know
and understand the diverse and complex livelihood strategies of the poor, in particular the
role of indigenous knowledge. This is important to promote the mainstreaming of indigenous knowledge in poverty alleviation and sustainable livelihoods programmes and strategies.
Objectives:
•
To introduce participants to the concept of Indigenous Knowledge
•
To introduces indigenous knowledge as a significant resource which could
contribute to the increased efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of the
development process.
•
To demonstrate the extent to which harnessing of IK can empower local
communities and help to improve the effectiveness of programmes in poverty
reduction.
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Introduction and background
Indigenous knowledge is a critical factor for sustainable development. Empowerment of
local communities is a prerequisite for the integration of IK in the development process.
The integration of appropriate IK systems into development programs has already contributed to efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainable development impact. IK, like any
other knowledge, needs to be constantly used, challenged, and further adapted to the
evolving local contexts. Supporting local and regional networks of traditional practitioners and community exchanges can help to disseminate useful and relevant IK and to
enable communities to participate more actively in the development process. While innovative mechanisms for the protection of IK need to be developed, many indigenous
knowledge practices can at the same time be integrated into local, national, regional, or
even global development efforts.
What is Indigenous Knowledge?
Indigenous knowledge is often referred to as traditional knowledge or local knowledge
and can be defined as “knowledge that is unique to a given culture or society. It is the
basis for local-level decision-making in agriculture, health care, food preparation, education, natural-resource management, and a host of other activities in rural communities.”
(Warren, 1991)
Why is Indigenous Knowledge important?
Indigenous knowledge is important because it forms the basis for any country’s knowledge
system and it also encompasses the skills, experiences and insights of people, applied to
maintain or improve their livelihood. Indigenous knowledge is part of the lives of the rural
poor; their livelihood depends almost entirely on specific skills and knowledge essential
for their survival .
The social dimensions of indigenous knowledge include spiritual relationships; relations
based on reciprocity and obligations towards both community members and other beings;
communal resource management institutions based on shared knowledge and meaning.
What is important is that all human societies have their own traditional or indigenous
knowledge, which tells them how to survive in a given social environment .
Indigenous Knowledge has also contributed to global knowledge in areas such as medicine and veterinary medicine through the intimate understanding of the local/indigenous
people of their environments. IK is also social capital of the poor, their main asset to
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invest in the struggle for survival, to produce food, to provide for shelter or to achieve control of their own lives. Some of the indigenous practices that have contributed to global
knowledge in medicine, nutrition etc include medicinal properties of devil’s claw (sengaparile); slimming agent/properties of the hoodia; nutritional benefits of the Mopani
resources (masonja).
Indigenous Knowledge Systems are at risk of becoming extinct because of the changing
natural, political, economic and cultural environments. While indigenous knowledge is
valuable, a science in its own right, with the capacity to innovate, many practices disappear because they are overtaken by foreign technologies and development concepts and
deemed inferior. The threat of extinction of IK is not only felt by those who developed it
and made a living through it. It will also have detrimental effects to many and in particular the poor, when skills, technologies, artefacts, problem solving strategies and expertise are lost.
Indigenous knowledge also forms an integral part of the livelihoods of the poor who
depend almost entirely on specific skills and knowledge essential for their survival. It
plays a critical role in the development process and is of particular relevance for the following sectors and strategies:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Agriculture
Animal husbandry and ethnic veterinary medicine
Use and management of natural resources
Primary Health Care, Preventive medicine and Psychological care
Saving and lending
Community development
Poverty alleviation
IK is a key element of the social capital of the poor and constitutes their main asset in their
efforts to gain control of their own lives. For these reasons, the potential contribution of IK
to locally managed, sustainable and cost-effective survival strategies should be promoted
in the development process.
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The Relevance of IK to Sustainable Development
Indigenous Knowledge has a role to play in sustainable development which is now being
recognized by many scientific and social researchers. Indigenous knowledge of the local
ecosystem has a positive role to play in the formulation and implementation of sustainable development policies and projects. African indigenous ecological knowledge is relevant for sustainable development due to the following reasons:
•
The long-term generation and transmission of knowledge of the local ecosystem
offers a unique historical perspective into indigenous risk adjustment options.
Modern scientists involved in the management and conservation of areas that may
be ecologically fragile or marginal, or that contain genetically important plant or
animal biodiversity, may benefit greatly from such alternative knowledge.
•
There is growing international support and political recognition for universal
human rights in development activities. Public opinion is also calling for the
physical and cultural protection for the remaining indigenous societies (including
key elders and their languages).
Indigenous Knowledge, Biodiversity and Development
Very little of indigenous knowledge has been recorded, yet it represents an immensely
valuable data base that provides humankind with insights on how numerous communities
have interacted with their changing environment including its floral and faunal resources.
Rural communities have played a critical role in:
•
Generating knowledge based on a sophisticated understanding of their
environment
•
Devising mechanisms to conserve and sustain their natural resources, and
•
Establishing community-based organizations that serve as forums for identifying
problems and dealing with them through local-level experimentation, innovation,
and exchange of information with other societies.
ndigenous knowledge, particularly in the African context, has long been ignored
I
and maligned by outsiders. Today, however, a growing number of African
governments and international development agencies are recognizing that
local-level knowledge and organizations provide the foundation for participatory
approaches to development that are both cost-effective and sustainable.
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ACTIVITY 4:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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THEME V:
SUSTAINABLE UTILIZATION OF ENERGY
Indentify custodians of indigenous knowledge in your community and interview
them on the following:
How indigenous/local knowledge can be used to address the following
challenges:
Food insecurity
Primary health care needs
Environmental management
Conflict management
Value based community development/Regeneration of morals
and other areas critical for community building
What are the views of your interviewees with regard to conservation of IKS and
how can this be achieved?
What is happening in your community that is linked to conservation of IK and how
can that be strengthened?
Didactical Unit 5:
Energy Crisis in South Africa
“Then it was ‘White Power’ followed by ‘Black Power’ and now it is ‘No Power’
Desmond Dube
Overview
Since 1994 progress have been towards the achievement of the aims of the RDP. In terms
of basic services, houses completed since 1994 amount to 2.3 million up to March 2006
although this is low relative to the backlogs. The percentage of households with access to
water has also increased from 61.7% to 84.7%; while those with access to basic sanitation have increased from 50% in 1994 to 71% in 2006. With regard to the provision of
electricity, 3.5 million homes are electrified since 1994.
These successes did not come without unintended consequences. Although the large
amount of electricity is used by big companies and mines, the demand for electricity for
household use have increased since 1994. This situation was foreseen early in 2007 by
Isabel Baldry who highlighted the likelihood that there will be an energy crisis in the
future. Energy is a big issue in the contemporary world, and given the growing demand
shortage was inevitable. Many experts believe this problem can only be solved by the use
of alternative energy solutions. Energy means the fuel that drives our cars, gives us electricity and enables us to enjoy modern amenities we feel so vulnerable without. The fossil fuels that have been the prime source of energy for human society since the beginning
of the industrial revolution are now running low because of the limited stocks and reserves
that are not renewable.
Improving energy efficiency and energy conservation is the most logical, inexpensive,
fastest and cleanest solution to the energy crisis facing South Africa. In his State of the
Nation address, President Mbeki announced commitment to the implementation of the
national apex priorities on of which is to launch a massive campaign to ensure saving of
energy by households and industrial users.
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Objectives:
•
To create awareness on the energy crisis and its causes in South Africa
•
To develop knowledge on the Electricity Management Programmes and their
benefits
To describe some techniques for efficient utilization of energy
•
•
To discuss the role of Masupatsela in the promotion of Electricity Management
Programmes and energy efficiency techniques.
The energy crisis in South Africa
The increasing demand for electricity in South Africa has resulted in a serious energy crisis. Electrical energy is supplied by ESKOM and is largely generated by coal burning
power stations located throughout the country. Coal contributes 78% and nuclear 3% of
energy source. The national grid generating capacity in South Africa is about 41 000
Megawatts of which 15% is used for residential purposes while the demand is around
35%. This has resulted in most of the areas being affected by power cuts impacting negatively mainly on business as they suffered financial losses. On a positive note, this has
contributed not only increased energy awareness but also ‘bonding’ in the family without
being glued on TV screens.
•
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Demand response programs: These programs aim to shift consumption from peri
ods of peak demand to low consumption periods.
Alternative Energy Solutions
Alternative Energy Solutions include all prime movers that can use a renewable natural
resource to produce energy. This may be wind, thermal energy from the earth, and wave
action in the shores and solar energy from the sun. Alternative energy resources can also
include new technology like fuel cells. The utilization of other forms of energy like wind
is therefore very important. Alternative energy usually means the production of electricity
via the use of some natural and renewable resource. People have used wind energy in the
past and in the 21st century we use wind turbines to produce electricity. As a source of
power, wind is an excellent option. Wind turbines generate electricity by rotary motion
that is caused by the airflow. Some of the negatives associated with wind energy and wind
turbines lie in the unpredictability of wind since there is no rotation without wind and
electricity is not generated. One of the wind turbine projects was implemented by the
CSIR in the Eastern Cape near the Lubisi Dam. The most important issue lies in cost effectiveness, most power companies are still reluctant to invest in or buy their power from
companies that use wind turbines. This is changing as governments around the world have
started subsidizing power generation through alternative sources like wind.
Programmes for Electricity Management
Electricity management programs can be divided into two: Supply side management
(SSM) and Demand side management (DSM). SSM programs involve the supply of more
energy when demand is high. DSM is a more effective tool for curtailing the demand
when supply availability is less. DSM programs involve
three basic approaches: energy conservation, energy efficiency and demand response.
•
•
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Energy conservation programs: Customers are persuaded to reduce their energy
consumption by being satisfied with less of the things that electricity supplies,
such as lighting, heating, cooling.
Energy efficiency: The widespread use of energy efficient devices is our cheapest
and cleanest source of energy. It makes sense to say that the best way to ensure an
adequate supply of cheap energy for the future is to reduce consumption, rather
than increase demand. With efficiency the same work is done with less energy
whereas with conservation less work is done using less energy.
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South Africa has an abundance of sunshine and we need to make use of it, now. We have
to start generating our own electricity and take it out of the hands of one single utility.
However, rather than being reactive by purchasing an expensive generator, which costs a
fortune in diesel, we have to be proactive and invest in solar power systems that will ultimately save our businesses and South Africa's economy billions in the future. Generators
run on oil-based fuel and further increase our dependency on a finite resource. It also
exacerbates another potential problem that will occur when global oil production passes
its production peak and goes into permanent decline. As a society, we are going to have
to learn to make do with less oil.
The decline will be unrelenting and is likely to leave economic chaos in its wake as individuals, families, communities and nations adjust to a sea of change in the energy available to do the things that we currently take for granted.
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Energy Efficiency Techniques
In order to save energy, we have to embark on a number of energy efficient techniques
such as:
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•
•
Lighting: Use of energy saving light bulbs (CFL’s) that deliver more light per watt
are widely available must be adopted. These bulbs consume up to five times less
power than an equivalent incandescent bulb (IB) and can last up to six times
longer.
Buildings: The design, layout, orientation and the use of energy efficient materials
determine the thermal performance of a building. When choosing building
materials, focus should be on the heat absorbing capacity and the insulating
property of materials chosen.
Domestic Appliances: Use of stoves with ring coil as opposed to solid rings and
those that have radiating elements under a ceramic glass top.
To ensure even more energy savings during cooking the following simple rules should be
observed:
•
Match pot size with quantity being cooked as large pots require more energy.
•
Match the pot size with the size of the stove plate. Large plates require extra
energy and using a large plate for a small pot will waste energy.
•
When boiling use a pressure cooker. It builds up steam pressure and cooks at a
higher temperature. This reduces cooking time and saves energy.
Frozen foods should be defrosted overnight in order to reduce cooking times.
•
•
When using the oven, keep preheat times to the minimum
•
Hot Water Geyser: Geysers consume a lot of electricity which can be saved by
adhering to the following:
Mount the geyser in an enclosure that ensures minimum energy loss, for example
•
a convenient spot in the ceiling
•
Use a geyser blanket to minimize heat loss
Switch off the geyser overnight and when you are away from home
•
•
Install a programmable geyser timing devices that will allow you to program the
days and times when you want the geyser to be switched off and on.
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"As a society we sit with two choices, one is to increase our dependency on oil, which is
inevitably a dead-end approach and has no future. The alternative is to reduce our
dependency on finite fossil resources which will result in long-term sustainability."
Simon Ratcliffe
Activity 5
•
What are other sources of energy for lighting and cooking are used in your
community and what are their advantages and disadvantages?
•
Visit your nearest ESKOM or energy service provider and establish what strategies
they are proposing to save energy in your community or local area?
•
Establish what your role as Masupa-Tsela would be in the implementation of those
strategies in your community?
REFERENCES:
Baldry, Isabel. Alternative Energy Solutions in a time of Power Crisis, February 2007
Govender.P et al. Logical, Inexpensive, Clean and Fast Solutions for the Energy Crisis.
Berkes, F. 1993. ‘Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Perspective” in Traditional Ecological
Knowledge. Concepts and Cases, edited by J.T. Inglis. Ottawa: International Development
Research Centre.
Bloomfield, Michael. Green Cities: A Guide for Sustainable Community Development.
Harmony Foundation. UN World Environmental Day 2005.
Carney, D. (ed.) (1998) Sustainable Rural Livelihoods, Department for International
Development, London
CBSP Training Manual, Social Development Commission, Jamaica
Ciegies Remigijus, Gineitiene Dalia. 2007. Participatory Aspects of Strategic Sustainable
Development Planning in Local Communities: Experience of Lithuania. Kausas Faculty of
Humanities, Vilnius University. Lithuania
Department of Internal Affairs; Department of Social Development; Child, Youth and
Family and Community Employment Group. 2002. A Framework for Sustainable
Communities: A Discussion Document. New Zealand
Department of Social Services and Poverty Alleviation, Western Cape. 2005. The
Integrated Poverty Reduction Strategy for the Western Cape
Department of Electronic Engineering. Durban University of Technology
Easton, Charlene and Dixon Arlene. A Framework for local sustainable development and
planning in Jamaica. 2001.
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NOTES
Govender.P et al. Logical, Inexpensive, Clean and Fast Solutions for the Energy Crisis.
Karim Hussein, October 2002. Livelihoods Approaches Compared: A Multi-Agency
Review of Current Practice" [PDF]
Kotze, D.A. Editor. Development Administration and Management: A holistic approach.
1997. J.L. Van Schaick. Pretoria.
Mbeki, Thabo, President of SA. Apex Priorities announced in the State of the Nation
Address on 8 February 2008.
Ratcliffe, Simon. Chairperson of the Association of the Study of Peak Oil South Africa
(ASPO).
Rosenberg Eureta. Sustainable Development ~ Maintaining Profits or Sustaining People &
Planet
Silas Katana, farmer, Kilifi District, Kenya. Quoted in Porter et al (1991) p. 195
Soussan John et al. Understanding Livelihoods Processes and Dynamics
Swisher M.E, Sandra Rezola and James Sterns. Sustainable Community Development.
University of Florida, Texas
Triegaardt, Jean D. PhD. Reflections on Poverty and Inequality in South Africa:
Policy Considerations in an Emerging Democracy. ADRU
Warren, D.M. 1991 Using Indigenous Knowledge in Agricultural Development; World
Bank Discussion Paper No 127. Washington D.C. The World Bank
World Bank. 2001. World Development Report 2000/2001. Attacking Poverty. New York.
Oxford University Press
World Bank Group. A World Free of Poverty; http://www.worldbank.org
The Presidency, Republic of South Africa. Development Indicators: Mid-Term Review,
March 2007.
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PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND SKILLS/APPLY A RANGE OF PROJECT
MANAGEMENT TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES.
NOTES
MODULE COMPILED BY
MR SKHUMBUZO GCABASHE
Introduction
Welcome to module 6 that deals with project management processes and skills. Learners
accessing this module will be involved in project management teams or involved in building small project management teams. These projects may be technical, business or developmental projects and will cut across a range of economic sectors. This module will also
add value to learners who are running their own businesses and recognize that project
management forms an integral component of any business or community activity.
Learners accessing this module will also be working as leaders in the context of a small
project/ sub-project involving few resources and having a limited impact on stakeholders
and the environment or working as a contributing team member on a medium to large
project when not a leader.
This module has as its foundation knowledge areas taken from the Project Management
Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and PRINCE 2. The knowledge areas described in the aforesaid bodies are internationally recognized and have been adopted by many organizations
working on small, medium and large projects. It is therefore intended that you will be
equipped with skills to run community based projects using these international standards.
Objectives of the module
This module has as its objectives to:
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Describe ways in which community based projects are developed and managed.
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Describe the role played by the community and other role players in project
planning, implementation and evaluation.
Empower the youth with project planning and implementation skills.
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Empower youth with project monitoring skills.
Specific outcomes of the module
This module has three specific outcomes:
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Demonstrate and understanding of project management tools and techniques
Use a range of project management tools and techniques
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Apply corrective action steps where project management tools and techniques
usage problems occur.
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Assessment criterion for this module
In order to be declared competent, learners on this module need to demonstrate that they
satisfy the following criterion:
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A range of tools and techniques used on a project are identified and explained in
accordance with project requirements
•
Limitations and advantages of project management tools and techniques are
explained using examples
•
Examples of the usage of the project management tools and techniques are
provided in a hard copy format
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A range of project management tools and techniques are used in accordance with
established standards and procedures
•
Output of project management tools and techniques meet individual, team and
organizational needs/requirements
•
Problems with the usage of project management tools and techniques are
identified against project requirements
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Possible solutions are identified and discussed in consultation with higher
authority
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Authorised/ agreed solutions are implemented according to agreed steps
Definition of terms
What is a project?
Organizations perform work that generally involves either operations or projects, although
the two may overlap. Operations and projects share many characteristics, for example
they are:
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Performed by people
Constrained by limited resources
•
•
Planned, executed and controlled
Operations and projects differ primarily in that operations are ongoing and repetitive
while projects are temporary and unique. A project can thus be defined in terms of its distinctive characteristics. A project is a temporary endeavor or undertaken to create a
unique product or service. Temporary means that every project has a definite beginning
and ending. Unique means that the product of service is different in some distinguishing
way from all similar products or services.
Projects are undertaken at all levels of the organization. They may involve a single person
or many thousands. They may require less than 100 hours to complete or over
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10,000,000. Projects may involve a single unit of one organization or may cross organizational boundaries as in joint ventures and partnering. Projects are often critical components of the performing organization’s business strategy. Examples of projects include:
•
•
•
•
•
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Developing a new product or service
Effecting a change in structure, staffing or style of an organization
Designing a new transportation vehicle
Developing or acquiring a new or modified information system
Running a campaign for political office
Implementing a new business procedure or process
Characteristics of projects
•
Unique – projects are unique in nature and do not involve repetitive processes.
•
Timescale – projects have a defined timescale that have a clearly specified start
and end date within which deliverable must be produced to meet specified
requirements
•
Budget – projects have an approved budget within which deliverable must be
produced to meet specified requirements.
•
Resources – projects have limited resources, e.g. labour, equipment and materials, which are allocated and agreed upon at the start of a project.
•
Risk – projects involve an element of risks as they entail a level of uncertainty.
Change – projects are meant to achieve a beneficial change as the main purpose
•
for a project is to improve an organization through the implementation of a
business change.
What is project management?
Project management can be defined as the application of knowledge, skills, tools and
techniques to project activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations from project.
Project management can also be defined as the skills, tools and management processes
required to undertake a project successfully.
Characteristics of project management
•
A set of Skills – specialist knowledge, skills and experience are required to reduce
the level of risks within a project and thereby enhances its likelihood of success.
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A suite of tools – various types of tools are used by project managers to improve
their chances of success, examples include templates and registers.
A series of processes – various management techniques and processes are required
to monitor and control time, cost, quality and scope of projects, examples include
time management, change management and issue management.
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The project life-cycle
According to PRINCE2 projects are defined by the following processes:
Stakeholder analysis in project management
Project stakeholders are individuals, organizations and communities who are actively
involved in the project or whose interest may be positively or negatively affected as a
result of the project execution or successful project completion.
The project management team must identify stakeholders, determine what their needs
and expectations are, manage and influence those expectations to ensure a successful
project is realised.
Projects and project management operates in an environment broader than that of a project itself. The project management team must understand this broader context – managing the day-to-day activities of the project is necessary for success but not sufficient.
Therefore, in project planning and implementation one needs to be aware of the needs
and roles of the following stakeholders or role players in projects.
Community affected
•
•
Spheres of government
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Community organizations
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Project committees
Project funders
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Community facilitators
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Project consultants
The purpose of stakeholder analysis is to inform the project coordinator and project sponsor who should contribute to the project, where barriers might be and the actions that
need to be taken prior to detailed project planning. The following must be known:
•
•
•
•
•
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The name of the stakeholder
The stakeholder’s interest or requirements from the project
What the project needs from the stakeholder
Perceived attitudes and/ or risks
Actions to take
Figure : Project Life Cycle
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According to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) three basic phases in
projects are identified:
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Initial phase
•
Intermediate phase
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Final phase
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detailed planning phase.
The following are elements of a project charter/ specification:
START
Figure 2: Sample GenericLife Cycle
Starting up a project
In this process the project team is appointed and the project brief (describing, in outline,
what the project is attempting to achieve and the business justification for doing so) is prepared. In addition to the overall approach to be taken, the next phase of the project is
planned. Once this work is done, the project team is asked to authorize the next phase,
that of initiating the project.
Project initiation phase
In this phase a community problem (or opportunity) is identified and a business case
which provides various solutions or options is defined. A feasibility study is then conducted to investigate the likelihood of each solution or option addressing the community problem and a final recommended solution is put forward. Once the recommended solution
is approved, a project is initiated to deliver the approved solution. A project charter/ specification is completed, which outlines the objectives, scope and structure of the new project and a project manager is appointed. A project manager begins to recruit a project team
and establishes a project office environment. Approval is then sought to move into the
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Figure 3: Elements of projector charter
Project planning phase
In this phase various activities of the project are planned. A useful tip is to work backwards
from the end aim, identifying all the things that need to be put in place and done, in
reverse order. First, brainstorming (simply noting ideas and points at random), will help to
gather most of the points and issues. For complex projects, or when you lack experience
of the issues, involve others in the brainstorming process. Thereafter it’s a question of putting the issues in the right order and establishing relationships/ links between each issue.
Complex projects will have a number activities running in parallel. Some parts of the project will need other parts of the project to be completed before they can begin or progress.
Some projects will require feasibility stage before the completion of a detailed plan.
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Practical project management skills and tools
The following paragraphs will give you practical skills to manage projects successfully.
Note that not all concepts will apply to all projects; however the principles and the phases will still be the same.
•
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List any risks and issues with each solution
Choose a preferred solution for implementation
Document the results in a feasibility report
You must then write a Project Charter (this was discussed in the previous section) which
is typically one of the most challenging steps in the Project Life Cycle, as it defines the
parameters within which the project must be delivered (It defines project scope)
Having a project charter will help you to:
Identify the project vision and objectives
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•
Define the complete scope of the project
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List all of the critical project deliverables
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State the customers and project stakeholders
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List the key roles and their responsibilities
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Create an organizational structure for the project
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Document the overall implementation plan
•
List any risks, issues and assumptions
You must then develop Job Descriptions which are known to be a time consuming and
challenging task, as it defines the targets for a role. It also defines how those targets are
going to be measured and how the performance of the role will be assessed.
Project Initiation phase
To build a business case for your project you must:
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Research a community problem or opportunity
Identify the alternative solutions available
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Quantify the benefits and costs of each solution
Recommend a preferred solution to your sponsor/funder
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Identify any risks and issues with implementation
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Present the solution for funding approval
To conduct a feasibility study you must:
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Research the community problem or opportunity
Document the business and community requirements for a solution
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Identify all of the alternative solutions available
Review each solution to determine its feasibility
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Writing job descriptions will help you to:
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Define the real purpose of the role of each member of the project team
List the key responsibilities of the role
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Define who this role will be reporting to
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Create a detailed Organizational Chart
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List the skills and experience needed
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Define any relevant qualifications
Set out the key performance criteria
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Identify the salary and working conditions
You must then plan to set up and run a Project Management Office (PMO) within a community/ organisation.
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To create a project plan you must:
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Identify all of the phases, activities and tasks
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Sum up the effort needed to complete those tasks
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Document all of the project inter-dependencies
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List the planning assumptions and constraints
•
Create a detailed project planning schedule
In order to establish a PMO you must:
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Identify the right location for your PMO team
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Ensure that you have the correct infrastructure
Procure the right PMO equipment and tools
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•
Define the PMO roles and responsibilities
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Put in place suitable standards and processes
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Implement relevant project management templates
Offer Project Management Office services to projects.
•
The Phase Review is done at the end of the Project Initiation phase to tell the sponsor/funder and even interested stakeholders whether the project has achieved its objectives to
date. In other words it gives a progress report on the project.
First, a Project Review is conducted to measure the deliverables produced by the project,
then the results of the review are documented and presented to the interested stakeholders for approval.
Phase reviews are conducted at the end of the Initiation, Planning and Execution phases
within a project.
The phase review helps you document the results of your Project Review, by stating
whether the:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Project is currently delivering to schedule
Budget allocated was sufficient at this point
Deliverables have been produced and approved
Risks have been controlled and mitigated
Issues were identified and resolved
Changes were properly managed
Project is on track
Project Planning phase
In this Project Planning phase you would be able to quickly and easily create a Project
Plan for your project. The project plan will have all the tasks required to deliver your project on time and within budget. Other practitioners in project management call this stage
scheduling stage.
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A project resource plan helps you to identify all of the resources required to complete your
project successfully. There are three types of resources you will need to complete projects:
•
Labor/people/human capital
•
Equipment, and
•
Materials.
By having a detailed resource plan you will be able to identify the quantity of labor, equipment and materials needed to deliver your project.
You will then create a resource schedule, which enables you to plan the consumption of
each type of resource, so that you know that you will have enough resource to complete
every phase in the project.
To create a resource schedule you must identify the:
•
Types of people required for the project
Roles and key responsibilities for each person
•
•
Number of people required to fill each role
•
Items of equipment to be used and their purposes
•
Types and quantities of equipment needed
•
Total amount of materials needed
The resource schedule will therefore help you to:
Plan the dates for using or consuming the resources
•
•
Identify the amount of resource required per project activity
•
Create a detailed resource utilization schedule
Financial Plans enable you to set a "budget", against which you measure your expenditure. To deliver you project "within budget", you need to produce the project deliverables
at a total cost which does not exceed that stated in the budget. One of the success indicators of projects is the amount of funds that were spent in the execution of the project.
To do a financial plan you must identify the:
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You can then use this risk management plan to:
Another important plan to develop and use is the acceptance plan. An Acceptance Plan
helps you to gain the customers acceptance for the deliverables produced by your project.
By performing Acceptance Planning for your projects, you'll boost your chances of success - as you will constantly produce deliverables which meet your customer’s requirements. To have a communication plan helps you to communicate the right information, to
the right people, at the right time. It will help you create a schedule of communication
events to ensure that your stakeholders are always kept properly informed, ensuring their
continued buy-in and support.
Types of labour costs to be incurred during the project
Items of equipment needed to deliver the project
Various materials needed by the project
Unit costs for labor, equipment and materials
Other costs types such as administration
Amount of contingency needed
You can then use the Financial Plan to create a budget by:
•
Calculating the total cost involved in completing the project
•
Identifying the total cost of each project activity
•
Creating a schedule of expenses
Creating a project budget is an important part in any project, as it gives you a goal post
for delivering the project. Your project team will then have a clear target to hit-by focusing on delivering the project within the budget set.
A financial plan/budget can be used to set quality targets and monitor quality. You can use
it to develop a quality control plan and quality assurance plan.
Building quality criteria into your project is a critical part of the project planning phase.
It enables you to agree a set of quality targets with project implementers. A quality plan
therefore helps you to monitor and control the level of quality produced by the project, to
ensure that you meet the quality targets set.
Risk planning in projects helps you to identify risk and implement a plan to reduce it.
These are threats to the successful completion of the project. Using a risk management
plan, you can monitor and control risks effectively, increasing you chances of achieving
success.
To do a risk management plan you must:
Define Risk Management, as it applies to your project
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•
Identify the categories of risk which are relevant
•
List all of the types of risks which may occur
Determine the likelihood of the risks occurring
•
•
Calculate the impact on the project if risk does occur
•
Rank the risks identified in order or priority
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To draw a communication plan you must:
•
List all your stakeholders
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Define each stakeholders’ communication needs
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Identify the required communications events
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Determine the method and frequency of each event
•
Allocate resources to communications events
•
Build a communication event schedule
Project implementation
In order to succeed in projects, time management is of paramount importance. You can
use time management to monitor and control projects. Simple time sheets can used to
control the amount of time that it takes staff to build deliverables within a project, increasing your chances of delivering "on time" and to schedule. It is a known fact that most projects come late-that is the way it is. Ideally plan for some slippage. If you have been given
a fixed deadline, plan to meet earlier and work backwards from that earlier date. Build
some slippage or leeway into each phase of the project.
To make a time management schedule you must:
•
Lists the key steps taken to manage time within a project
Includes a process diagram, showing when those steps are taken
•
•
Describe each of the roles and responsibilities involved
List the Time Management documents to be used
•
To manage costs effectively you need to:
•
Identify each of the costs within your project
•
Ensure that expenses are approved before purchasing
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Keep a central record of all costs incurred
Control the overall cost of your project
When executing a project changes are inevitable and changes need to be managed carefully otherwise they can lead the project astray. Therefore change management becomes
critical. This means that all requests to change must handled with care. This is because
change usually affects your ability to deliver your project within scope, therefore increasing your costs and delivery timeframes. By putting a change process in place, you'll easily be able to monitor and control the amount of change that take place.
To deliver your project "within budget", it's essential that you put in place an efficient
process for managing project costs. This means you must monitor and record all costs
within a project. A record of costs needs to be kept. Prior to payment, the project manager needs to review and approve expenses.
To effectively manage changes in projects you must:
•
Identify the requirements for change within your project
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Put in place a process for submitting Change Requests
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Determine the feasibility of changes requested
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Formally approve each change before they occur
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Schedule change to happen, when you want it to happen
•
Review the impact of each change on your project
Keeping your project stakeholders properly informed is a key activity within any project.
Whether it's through project status reports, regular project meetings or informal email, you
can ensure that the right messages are distributed about the progress of your project. This
will help your project team and external stakeholders to remain focused on delivery and
to provide you with all of the support you need to deliver your project successfully.
In order to do this you need to:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Identify the messages that need to be sent
Determine your target audience for communication
Decide on your message format and timing
Draft your message and gain approval where required
Communicate your message through communication events
Gather feedback and improve your communication process.
Project closure
At the end of a project a project closure report is necessary to formally close and windup the project. You therefore need to document all tasks that are needed to complete your
project and hand over deliverables to the project initiator/ funder or other previously identified stakeholder.
As you will be interfacing with community projects, issue management is important as it
deals with the manner within which issues are identified and resolved within projects. You
need to identify and resolve issues quickly before they have an impact on your project.
In the planning stage we touched on the importance of communication in project management. An effective communication process helps you to undertake project management communication more clearly and effectively than before. It does this by giving you
a framework within which all project management communication should be undertaken.
If you want to keep the right people informed, by giving them the right information as the
right time, then this process will benefit you.
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To write a good project closure report you need to:
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Identify the project completion criteria
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List any outstanding activities
•
Create a plan for passing deliverables to your principal stakeholder
Plan the handover of a project document
•
•
Crease supplier contracts and agreements
•
Release project resources to the business
Communication the closure of the project
•
Another important step in managing project which is unfortunately forgotten is the post
closure implementation review. This post implementation review enables you to perform
a post project review for your project, soon after it has ended. By performing a post project review, you can identify the project successes, deliverables, achievements and lessons
learnt. The post project review is the last critical step in the project life cycle, as it allows
an independent party to validate the success of the project and give confidence to the
stakeholders that it has met the objectives it set out to achieve.
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To do a post project review you need to:
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Measure the benefits and objectives
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Decide whether the project was within scope
•
Assess the final deliverables produced
Review the project against schedule
•
•
Compare the expenditure against budget
•
State the final outcome of the project
•
•
•
Generic management skills needed for successful project planning and execution
General management is a broad subject dealing with every aspect of managing a for
profit business, a non-governmental organisation or community based projects whether
they are big or small. Among other topics it includes:
•
Finance and accounting, sales and marketing, research and development, manu
facturing and distribution.
•
Strategic planning, tactical planning, and operational planning.
•
Organizational structures, organizational behavior, personnel administration,
compensation, benefits and career paths.
•
Managing work relationships through motivation, delegation, supervision, team
building, conflict management and other techniques.
•
Managing oneself through personal time management, stress management and
other techniques.
General management skills provide much of the foundation for building project management skills. They are often essential for the project manager. On any given project, skill in
any number of general management areas may be required. This section describes key
general management skills that are highly likely to affect most projects and that are not
covered elsewhere. These skills are well documented in the general management literature and their application is fundamentally the same on a project.
There are also many general management skills that are relevant only on certain projects
or in certain application areas. For example, team member safety is critical on virtually all
construction projects and of little concern on most software development projects.
Leading
There is a distinguishing factor between leading and managing though there is a need for
both, one without the other is likely to produce poor results. Managing is primarily concerned with “consistently producing key results expected by stakeholders” while leading
involves:
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Establishing direction – developing both a vision of the future and strategies for
producing the changes needed to achieve that vision.
Aligning people – communicating the vision by words and deeds to all those
whose cooperation may be needed to achieve the vision.
Motivating and inspiring – helping people energize themselves to overcome
political, bureaucratic and resource barriers to change.
On a project, particularly a large project, the project manager is generally expected to be
the project leader as well. Leadership is not, however, limited to the project manager: it
may be demonstrated by many different individuals at many different times during the
project. Leadership must be demonstrated at all levels of the project (project leadership,
technical leadership, team leadership).
Communicating
Communicating involves the exchange of information. The sender is responsible for making the information clear, unambiguous and complete so that the receiver can receive it
correctly. The receiver is responsible for making sure that the information is received in its
entirety and understood correctly. Communicating has many dimensions:
Written or oral, listening and speaking
•
•
Internal (within the project) and eternal (to the customer/ media/ public)
Formal (reports/ briefings) and informal (memos/ ad hoc conversations)
•
•
Vertical ( up and down the organization) and horizontal (with peers)
The general management skill of communicating is related to, but not the same as, project Communication Management. Communicating is the broader subject and involves a
substantial body of knowledge that is not unique to the project context, for example:
•
•
•
•
•
Sender-receiver models – feedback loops, barriers to communication etc.
Choice of media – when to communicate in writing/ orally, when to write an
informal memo/ a formal report, etc.
Writing style – active vs. passive voice, sentence structure, word choice, etc.
Presentation techniques – body language, design of visual aids, etc.
Meeting management techniques – preparing an agenda, dealing with conflict,
etc.
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Project Communication Management is the application of these broad concepts to the
specific needs of a project, for example: deciding how, when, in what form and to whom
to report project performance.
Negotiating
Negotiating involves conferring with others in order to come to terms or reach an agreement. Agreements may be negotiated directly or with assistance, mediation and arbitration are two types of assisted negotiation. Negotiations occur around many issues, at
many times, and at many levels of the project. During the course of a typical project, project staff is likely to negotiate for any or all of the following:
•
•
•
•
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Scope, cost and schedule objectives
Changes to scope, cost or schedule
Contract terms and conditions
Assignments
Resources
Problem solving
Problem solving involves a combination of problem definition and decision making. It is
concerned with problems that have already occurred (as opposed to risk management that
addresses potential problems).
Problem definition requires distinguishing between causes and symptoms. Problems may
be internal (a key employee is reassigned to another project) or external (a permit required
to begin work is delayed). Problems may be technical (differences of opinion about the
best way to design a product), managerial (a functional group is not producing according
to plan) or interpersonal (personality or style clashes).
Decision making includes analyzing the problem to identify viable solutions and then
making a choice from/ among them. Decisions can be made or obtained (from the customer, team or functional manager). Once made, decisions must be implemented.
Decisions also have a time element to them. The “right” decision may not be the “best”
decision if it is made too early or too late.
Influencing the organization
Influencing the organization involves the ability to “get things done”. It requires an understanding of both the formal and informal structures of all organizations involved – the performing organization, the customer, contractor and numerous others as appropriate.
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Influencing the organization also requires an understanding of the mechanics of power
and politics.
Both power and politics are used here in their positive senses. Pfeffer defines power as
“the potential ability to influence behavior, to change the course of events, to overcome
resistance and to get people to do things that would not otherwise do”. In similar fashion,
Eccles says that “politics is about getting collective action from a group of people who
may have quite different interests. It is about being willing to use conflict and disorder creatively. The negative sense is derived from the fact that attempts to reconcile these interests result in power struggles and organizational games that can sometimes take on a thoroughly unproductive life of their own.
Critical path analysis
‘Critical path analysis’ sounds very complicated but it is very a logical and effective
method for planning and managing complex projects. In projects you must note that some
of the activities must happen in parallel and that certain tasks must be started before others while certain tasks must be completed before in order for others to begin. To make
projects easier, a critical analysis is a diagrammatical representation of what needs to be
done and when. Timescales and costs can be applied to each activity and resources allocated.
Gantt chats
Gantt charts are extremely useful project management tools. You can construct a Gantt
chart using MS Excel or using MS Projects. Every activity has a separate line. Create a
timeline for the duration of the project. You can colour code the time blocks to denote
type of activity. You can schedule review and breakpoints. At the end of each line you can
show as many costs columns for the activities as you need. A Gantt chart built along these
lines can be used to keep track of progress for each activity and how the costs are running. You can move the time blocks around on actuals versus planned and to reschedule
and to create new plan updates. Gantt charts are the most flexible and useful of all project management tools, but remember they do not show the importance and interdependence of related parallel activities. They also do not show the necessity to complete one
task before another can begin as the critical path analysis will do. What is important is
that you need both tools especially at the planning stage.
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NOTES
Listed below are some tools you will need when planning and executing projects.
Please complete the forms as appropriate as possible.
Please note: completing the forms is an aid to help you deliver your projects, not an end
in itself.
•
Defining Project Responsibilities
•
Stakeholder Analysis
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Milestone Chart
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Milestone Report
Variation Form
•
Risk Log
•
•
Business Case Form
•
Project Definition Form or PID
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Project Reporting Form
•
Highlight Report
•
Change Control Form
•
Change Control Log
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Actual V Planned
•
Project management check sheet
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MILESTONE REPORT
DEFINING PROJECT RESPONSIBILITIES
Project:
Date of Milestone meeting/discussion:
STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS
The purpose of stakeholder analysis is to inform the project manager and sponsor who should contribute to the
project, where barriers might be, and the actions that need to be taken prior to detailed project planning.
* R = Red flags [off plan - describe in detail: quality, cost, time]
A = Amber [is almost off schedule or will definitely be off schedule NOTE: you may need to agree the precise
definition before use]
G = Green flags [to plan or better - show savings]
VARIATION FORM
MILESTONE CHART
Main milestones/phases shown on higher chart, and sub-milestones for each phase on charts below
Signed:
Project Sponsor: ___________________Date:__________________
Project Manager: __________________Date: __________________
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BUSINESS CASE FORM
Scores as follows, for likelihood and impact; High = 3, Medium = 2, Low = 1
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PROJECT REPORTING FORM
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NOTES
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