Abstract:
The advent of democracy in South Africa brought a paradigm shift towards a developmental approach for social welfare (RSA, 1997), including victim empowerment services. The government of South Africa established the Victim Empowerment Programme (VEP) in 1998. In 2004, the Cabinet of South Africa adopted the Victims’ Charter (2004) which recognises the importance of the role and rights of victims in crime prevention and addressing the effects of crime in a manner that is empowering to the victim. Since victim empowerment services have to be aligned to the developmental approach, social workers must ensure that the services to victims are rendered developmentally. The goal of the study was to explore and describe the rendering of victim empowerment services from a developmental approach at Ikhaya Lethemba. The exploratory study used the qualitative research approach. The research design was collective case study. The sample was drawn purposively and participants included ten social workers, five managers and three supervisors. Data was collected from managers and supervisors through one-on-one interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect data from social workers. Both interviews were guided by semi-structured interview schedules The findings of the study indicate that Ikhaya Lethemba has made a shift to rendering victim empowerment services from a developmental approach. The services at Ikhaya Lethemba are in alignment with the key themes and principles of the developmental approach. However, challenges that impact on comprehensive developmental victim empowerment services include gaps in understanding the development approach, as well as skills development programmes and internal procedures that restrict victims empowerment on both social and economic levels. The study concludes that the lack of a comprehensive understanding of the developmental approach, the failure to align victim empowerment services to the strength based perspective, and the absence of clear internal policies in service delivery of VES influences the rendering of victim empowerment services from a developmental approach. The recommendations include the need for revision and reinforcement of internal policies in rendering developmental victim empowerment services; training of social workers, supervisors and managers on the developmental approach, and revisiting the requirements of skills development programmes.
