Social Work Intervention In Child Abuse

Chief among social workers’ interventions, overriding all else, are material concerns. In a case of domestic violence and child abuse, the only question was whether the father provided food, and in pursuing a potential adoption whether the family could afford to send the child to school. Similarly, on visiting a terminally ill mother of four, attention was given solely to delivering toiletries. The worker noted the children’s distress and the house’s over crowdedness, which afforded the woman little rest, but neither problem was followed up. Conversely, when a household’s financial situation was deemed satisfactory, no intervention took place. For example, when a child was accused of stealing and her siblings complained of neglect, the worker
concluded that since all were well dressed and their rooms well furnished, then ‘no real problem exists’. Apart for the rate and level of poverty in the country that obviously affects this orientation, it is also likely to stem from the African-wide belief that healthy physical growth assures psychosocial well-being (Timyan, 1988), so that when the former occurs, the latter invariably follows. Social workers, like other service providers, such as kindergarten teachers (Bar-On, 2004), find it difficult, therefore, to identify and hence understand and address emotional issues.1