Challenges of contemporary social work in Ghana

Abstract

Social work is practiced all over the world with the primary aim of helping individuals and improving the welfare of the general society. Ghana is a multi-ethnic society with a multitude of different cultural practices that may affect social work interventions (implementation by practitioners and clients’ response). The main goal of this paper is to show how indigenous cultural practices in Ghana shape the way of supporting children, older people, people living with physical disabilities and mental health disorders, and the socially excluded. This paper relies on available literature and the first-hand account of the author. The extended family system where parenting, kinship, and identity includes the nuclear family as well as grand-parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and in-laws is prominent in Ghana, especially in rural areas. The positive aspect of this system as shown in this paper shows the merits in a collectivist approach to social welfare. However, some aspects of local cultural practices are shown to limit how vulnerable people have access to needed help. The article indicates the need to prepare social workers in such a way that their practice is adjusted to respond to local cultural practices in order to ensure more people have access to help and reduce the potential of rejection by people in local communities. It also contributes to the discussion on the merits of indigenization of social work.