The Democratic Alliance (DA) has asked the MEC of Social Development, Nontobeko Vilakazi, to present the legislature with a social worker recruitment and retention strategy, clearly indicating how a ringfenced amount of R14 million will be used to help address the 247 shortfall of social workers in the Northern Cape.
A recent portfolio committee meeting revealed that there are currently only 211 social workers deployed across the entire province to render psycho-social services to individuals battling poverty, substance abuse and mental health issues. This is against a target of 458 social workers, required to adequately address the effects of socio-economic ills in communities.
The DA appreciates that the department appointed 22 social workers in July and that it recently advertised an additional 44 social worker posts.
The DA is, however, concerned that the overburdening of social service professionals will compound the department’s inability to recruit and retain social workers.
The department previously conceded that social workers suffer from empathy fatigue. With a continued high social worker vacancy rate, it is uncertain how the department will, over the next five years, meet its strategic target of ensuring that social workers are ward-based and linked to clinics, hospitals and police stations while servicing two wards, and that child and youth care workers are linked with all schools.
The DA wants to know how the department plans on attracting, utilizing and retaining its new recruits in the most effective and sustainable manner possible, to address the need for psycho-social services while also safeguarding the wellness of overburdened social workers. We have requested the department to present its social worker recruitment and retention strategy to the legislature portfolio committee for review.
This is against the backdrop of the DA’s recommendation to the portfolio committee, and the department, made almost a year ago, to consider extending an invitation to the Western Cape Department of Social Development to share with us how the Social Work Integrated Management System (SWIMS) Application could be used in the province, to ease the workload of our already overburdened, understaffed and under resourced social workers.
For as long as socio-economic challenges burden our communities, the DA will continue to put pressure on the department to prioritise the filling of critical posts to ensure residents receive the psycho-social support they need.