The effectiveness of social work services on the behaviour modification of learners in eSikhaleni in KwaZulu-Natal
Schools in South Africa have many young learners in the education system whose problematic behaviour have been left unattended, and thus resulting in learners having emotional turmoil. According to the researchers observation Youth between the ages of 13-19 spend 75% of their time in the classroom area and because of this, one can assume that it is where their good or bad learnt behaviour or adapted behaviour manifests itself. What social workers must appreciate is that children come to school with vastly different needs and values. Therefore, social workers should focus their intervention on helping children to become aware of and to learn to exert some degree of control over those change processes that are already at work in their lives. The goal of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of social work services on the behaviour modification of learners. For this study, the researcher utilised the quantitative approach. The respondents included were twenty five educators as respondents to the research, representing five high schools in Esikhaleni. The key findings indicated in the study are that there is an under-utilisation of social workers at schools by the Department of Education. The findings of the study also indicated that mainly practicing social workers perform the task of school social workers, hence this limits access to social work services for troubled learners. The recommendations of this study are that Social Workers need to be placed on school premises as an immediate response measure, so that these two departments can work cooperatively. Social workers need to outline their plan of action and involve the educator in the modification process. Social workers should market themselves in their communities and should link up with other department so as to create a liaison partnership, such as schools and professional within those departments, eg educators, School Governing Body (SGB), and School Management Team (SMT).
Learners' behaviour -- schools KwaZulu-Natal, Social work services -- schools
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