Abstract
The South African government recognises its role in delivering services for addressing povertyand does so through social security and social development programmes based in differentservice delivery organisations (White Paper for Social Welfare, 1997). The importance ofascertaining the views of social service users is becoming more prevalent in human servicedelivery and has been established particularly in the fields of mental health and disability and inthe new social movements (Beresford & Croft, 2004). For example, in the United Kingdomservice users are increasingly participating in the education, training and assessment of socialwork students, in research and in wider decision making, such as participation in social policydevelopment (Beresford, Page & Stevens, 1994; Cornwall & Gaventa, 2001a; Hanley, 2005;Joans & Gaventa, 2002; Levin, 2004). Over the past two decades new legislation has made theparticipation of service users a requirement in the planning and development of services;however, it has been found that exclusionary structures within organisations, institutionalpractices and professional attitudes affect the extent to which change can by achieved by serviceusers (Carr, 2007).
Highlights
The South African government recognises its role in delivering services for addressing poverty and does so through social security and social development programmes based in different service delivery organisations (White Paper for Social Welfare, 1997)
The authors make use of this framework incorporating the political ethics of care, politics of needs interpretation and “good enough practice” in order to provide a normative lens with which to judge how adequate Cape Town service users found service delivery to be in a study conducted by social work students at the University of the Western Cape
The normative framework incorporating the politics of needs interpretation, the political ethics of care and good practice provides a useful analytical tool to expand our understanding of service users’ experiences and place these experiences in a broader political and social context
Summary
The South African government recognises its role in delivering services for addressing poverty and does so through social security and social development programmes based in different service delivery organisations (White Paper for Social Welfare, 1997). Everitt and Hardiker (1996:1, 27-28) suggest “good practice” as an alternative approach to social control evaluation measures with which to evaluate how service delivery practices best meet caring responsibilities from services users’ perspectives Their approach to evaluation is similar to the political ethic of care in that it values the democratic communication and interaction process between service user and social worker, i.e. responsiveness as following from attentiveness, responsibility and competence. The authors make use of this framework incorporating the political ethics of care, politics of needs interpretation and “good enough practice” in order to provide a normative lens with which to judge how adequate Cape Town service users found service delivery to be in a study conducted by social work students at the University of the Western Cape
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