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Abstract
This article discusses professional discretion in relation to placing a child outside the
family, as understood by Malawian social workers. The article is a product of an
exploratory study covering different aspects of social work practice with children and
families in Malawi. It is based on focus group discussions with practicing social workers
that were conducted using a vignette. This article describes how social workers handle
child protection cases, in which a child has to be placed outside the home or family. The
article points out different solutions and the reasoning behind certain decisions on
placing children outside their home. The study explores issues of patriarchy, intervention
methods into families and the cooperation between social workers, community members
and other professionals when helping families. The study found that a number of
different factors affect the decision of placing a child outside the home. Social workers
in this study put an emphasis on the importance of helping children within the immediate-
and extended family to help cope with the lack of financial resources that would provide
alternative options.
Background to social work and family in Malawi
In most societies, the family is the primary unit of socialization, economic and social
support for its members. When it is unable to fully carry out its functions, support and
service to families in need becomes a priority area for the social work profession
(Costello, 2003). According to Chitereka (2009), Malawi, like many other sub-Saharan
African countries, is facing a shortage of skilled frontline social work professionals,
particularly at the district level. This is primarily due to the fact that social work as a
profession in Malawi is relatively young and not well established. In addition to this, the
family, including the extended family, has been the most important avenue over the
years for where family members could get help of any kind. As stipulated by Wilson et
al. (2008), since the family has the responsibility over its members, there seems to be
no need for professionals to carry out this role. The family is responsible for taking care
of children which involves providing for them and protecting them. The Malawi Law
Commission (2006) cites the 1994 Constitution of Malawi, chapter 4, section 23,
subsection 3, which states that children have the right to know- and be raised by their
parents. This clause has been interpreted in several ways, one of which is that the state
gives parents total control with regard to custody of their children. This clause is further
clarified in the Child Care Protection and Justice Act (2010), which states that parents,
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
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family members and the state can decide on the custody of the child under different
conditions. Division 3, section 38 of the Child Care Protection and Justice act states that:
“Where a child has to be placed outside the home, the parents, the extended family or
the court can choose a guardian for the child. In the absence of a guardian, the child can
be placed in either a public foster home or a private foster home.” As stipulated in both
the 1994 Constitution and the Child Care Justice Act (2010), This legal provision appears
to imply that wherever possible, a child should be cared for by his/her family or their
delegate, and only when this cannot be done for any reason should a child be cared for
via public or private foster care. Maluwa-Banda and Bandawe (2001) argue that in most
cases vulnerable children are helpless because only a few social support systems exist,
and basic social services are largely inadequate. In addition to this, they point that it is
rare in rural communities for children to be fostered or adopted by non-relatives. A small
number of vulnerable children are admitted to orphanages, and the government runs a
foster care scheme for childless couples who wish to foster orphans (Bandawe & Louw,
1997). Maluwa-Banda and Bandawe (2001) also state that as part of the official support
system, the state strives to strengthen families and communities to meet the needs of
vulnerable children. However, it has been stipulated in the National Orphan Policy Plan
that the state, together with UNICEF, should further strengthen community-based
approaches for caring for children and expand formal foster care as a second source,
and that institutional care should be the last resort for where vulnerable children can be
placed while waiting for placements. It must also be noted that Maluwa-Banda and
Bandawe (2001) focused on orphaned children, but this applies to other vulnerable
children as well. According to Maluwa-Banda and Bandawe (2001), the statistics of the
current formal foster care placements are not found in the literature.
According to the Malawi government structure, the Child Protection Service falls under
the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare. The
task of the Child Protection Service is to help children who have different problems at
home, whether lacking material necessities or being physically abused or neglected.
According to the 1994 Constitution, children are entitled to protection from economic
exploitation or any treatment or work that is hazardous which interferes with their
education or is harmful to their health or to their physical, mental, spiritual or social
development. The Child Care Protection and Justice Act (2010), part 2, section 24 states
that: “A police officer, social welfare officer, a chief or any member of the community, if
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
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satisfied on reasonable grounds that a child is in need of care and protection, may take
the child and place him/her into his/her temporary custody or a place of safety and
brought before a child justice court within 48 hours.” However, this legislation is
impractical, as it provides widely ranging powers to almost anyone in Malawian society
to make judgements regarding abuse and to take action by taking a child to safety. The
impracticality of this legislation makes it hard to implement because this could be
translated to kidnapping, which is punishable by the Penal Code of Malawi
[Ch0701s258]. This penal code states that, “Any person who takes or entices any minor
under fourteen years of age if a male, or under sixteen years of age if a female, or any
person of unsound mind, out of the keeping of the lawful guardian of such minor or
person of unsound mind, without the consent of such guardian, is said to kidnap such
minor or person from lawful guardianship.” The consequence is that the Child Care
Protection and Justice Act, part 2, section 24 is not followed or practiced actively as it is
meant to because people are afraid that their actions might be misinterpreted for
kidnapping which is punishable through the penal code of Malawi [Ch0701s258].
Family structure in Malawi
According to Phiri (2009), a number of aspects determine the marriage contract in
Malawi. These aspects include family residential patterns, the exercising of domestic
authority, control or custody of children and the inheritance of land and property. These
aspects have been the result of historical developments, and they determine the
marriage type. Patrilineal and matrilineal marriage systems are the two main types of
family systems in Malawi. Davison (1993) highlighted that matrilineal marriage patterns
dictate that a husband moves to his wife’s village upon marriage (uxorilocality), while in
patrilineal, a wife moves to her husband’s village (virilocality). In matrilineal marriages,
systems of descent, land inheritance and clan affiliation are inherited through the
mother’s lineage. A patrilineal system is one in which systems of descent and land
inheritance are done through the fathers’ lineage. Even so, interchange with groups
practicing virilocality and the impacts of Westernization have affected these patterns
over time. These two traditional systems are legally recognized by the courts, such that
when courts are resolving disputes they take into account whether the person comes
from the matrilineal or patrilineal lineage to determine the custody of children or the
inheritance of property or land. This is because under matrilineal, it is the male from the
mother’s side who has control over the children. The uncle or the brother of the woman,
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
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and not necessarily the mother, has responsibility over a woman’s children, and these
are called “mbumba”. In modern days, these two systems are not applied in strict terms.
This is because people can settle in town at a place of their choice, and not necessarily
at the wife’s or the husband’s village. This has brought different systems that are
altogether made by the couples themselves. Nonetheless, research shows that in most
cases, in either matrilineal or patrilineal marriage systems, the men have the overriding
power with regard to the custody of children, land and property control and inheritance
over women (Davison, 1993; Phiri, 2009).
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Welfare regimes, family policy and child welfare systems
Every society has different rules and laws about what children are allowed and expected
to do, what their families and the state’s responsibilities are toward them and how much
children themselves should be involved in decisions that are taken about them
(Lawrence, 2004). Hantrais (2004) categorized European family policies into four
categories, namely defamilialized, partially defamilialized, familialized and refamilialized.
These different regimes reflect different ways of balancing state responsibility and
provision and family responsibility, and they can also reflect different approaches on how
social workers work with families. In defamilialized countries, governments have long
been explicit in their efforts to minimize the reliance of individuals on their families. State
intervention in family life is legitimized and commands public support, with the countries
in this category including the Nordic countries (Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and
Norway). In the second category of partially defamilialized, the government rhetoric is
supportive of families, but policy actors are reluctant to intervene in private life, thereby
resulting in a more implicit and indirect approach to policies for families. Examples of
partially defamilialized countries include Ireland, the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany
and the Netherlands. The third category of a familialized regime is characterized by a
fragmented and largely uncoordinated approach to family policy that is not administered
by a dedicated institution. The state delegates the responsibility for family well-being to
families themselves, who are under a legal obligation to look after their members. In this
case, family welfare can be described as familialistic. Examples of countries in the
familialistic welfare regimes include Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus and Malta.
Lastly, the fourth category of refamilialized entails that formal institutional structures for
managing family policy are existent and legitimized, but they are underfunded, so
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support for families is often rhetorical rather than practical, and the state is not trusted
to deliver good quality and reliable services. According to Hantrais (2004), examples of
countries in this category include former socialist countries such as Poland. Following
this categorization, Malawi can be said to fall under the familialized regime. This means
matters concerning the child are left to the family, and that in many cases parents are
not answerable to anyone in matters involving their children unless it is extremely life
threatening. As stated above, there quite a bit of legislation regarding family policy but
the implementation of these policies lacks funding and resources such that they remain
rhetorical rather than practical, as is going to be highlighted in this article. Still, it is worth
noting that the examples used by Hantrais are European countries only, and not African
countries for which this article applies.
Skivenes et al. (2015) categorized societies, depending on their ways of protecting
children. Three classifications are made, which include: child-centric, family service
system and child protection systems. The child-centric notion regards children as
individuals with particular rights and needs, and combines family service and child
protection in its approach. The family service is concerned with the provision to families,
which is based on a therapeutic idea of rehabilitation and people’s ability to revise and
improve their lifestyle and behaviour. The aim of the family service system is that child
welfare systems should provide services to prevent more serious harm, and thus prevent
out-of-home placements. The level of intervention in the family service system is
therefore low. Lastly, the child protection system focuses on intervention when there is
a serious risk of harm for a child. The level of intervention in this system is very high and
the ambition is to provide services for a possible reunification, and these three notions
could describe different types of child welfare systems. However, we cannot argue that
each society portrays only one of these notions as there could be some that might show
traces of two of them or even all three. Nevertheless, an understanding of these notions
can help to understand how social workers work with families.
Chapter IV of the Malawi Constitution makes it clear that it is within the family where
children are to be raised, and that it is the parents’ responsibility to ensure that their
children are provided with basic needs and protected from all forms of abuse. This is in
accordance with Malawi’s portrayal of the family service systems. Saxonberg and
Sirovátka (2006) argued that the higher involvement of the welfare state in welfare
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
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provision to individuals may challenge the institution of the family as a caregiver, and as
a backlash, the ties between the family members and the generations they represent
will become weaker. The opposite of this can only be implied where the state is not
highly involved in welfare provision and where this is the responsibility of the family, as
in the case of Malawi.
Social work in Malawi in regard to family policy
Saxonberg and Sirovátka (2006) argued that different types of welfare state and kinship
regimes shape and maintain the cultural, normative and practical context in which social
work takes place. Aspects such as social factors, politics related to power, cultural
orientations and other related aspects, affect how social workers work with families.
According to Saxonberg and Sirovátka (ibid), much attention has been given in Western
European countries to the interplay between state interventions and the family
obligations in caregiving in recent decades. Three actors emerge in family policy, and
these are the family itself, the state and the market. The respective roles of the state,
the market and the family in welfare provision to individuals affect the state’s
interventions into the family, and thus influence how social workers work with families.
When a family is no longer able to deal with problems, abuses its members, whether
physically or emotionally, and cannot provide the basic physical, security and emotional
needs of the children, this warrants the intervention of the department of social welfare.
Nonetheless, the response of the department of child welfare is influenced by the welfare
provision to individuals. In de-familialized regimes like in the Nordic countries, the state
has a responsibility towards its citizens, giving the state a say as to what goes on in
children’s lives. In Malawi, where the state does not provide tangible support for the
child, it makes it difficult for the state to intervene in the family on behalf of the child,
even though there are institutions and legislation which state that the state would
intervene in such situations. Intervention is mostly hindered by lack of financial
resources, although there are legitimate structures for family policy.
Symbolically, if we are to give hierarchies of power in the family according to the systems
of marriage in Malawi, the father would be on top of the hierarchy, followed by the mother
and then the children at the bottom (Phiri, 2009; Mbweza et al., 2008; Barzargan-Hejazi,
2013). This patriarchal hierarchy determines how social workers do their job with the
family and the powers that the fathers have over their families and their children, which
could also have a huge impact if a social worker decides to place a child outside the
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
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home. This is because if the father does not consent to a decision made by the social
workers, it then becomes difficult for the decision to be carried out. This can be compared
to other systems, in which the child welfare workers have authority from the state that
makes the parents’ compliance to their decisions involuntary in some cases. Hence, in
these systems, child welfare workers can decide to take a child out of a home even if
the parents do not give their consent. This is not the case in Malawi, where respect for
the parents’ consent in decisions is emphasized, and it can be problematic if the social
workers to decide on something that the parents do not want. Wilson et al. (2008)
highlighted that it is always difficult when the social workers have the best interests of
the child in mind, as far as not having their attention diverted to the child’s parents in
both family-based- and state-based child care systems.
Lawrence (2004) describes the powers vested in social workers with cases related to
the statutory responsibility of child protection, which allows social workers under certain
circumstances to remove children from their families. She states that there are specific
and rigorous legal grounds that need to be met for such an action to be taken everywhere
in the world. As discussed by Mbweza et al. (2008), it seems as if this is even more
difficult in Malawi because the family seems to have more authority on matters involving
their children. Despite home assessments that may expose the family as not being
conducive for the child to live in, social workers do not often interfere much on where
the child can be placed temporarily due to unreliable structures in children’s institutions
(Sabin et al., 2011). This is one of the key factors that differentiate social work practice
in Malawi from that of Western countries. While social workers in Western countries
might also believe in the sovereign value of the family, when the family is not providing
love, care, food and security to the children, Western social workers have suitable
options compared with their Malawian counterparts. This often leave children at risk and
helpless, which is worrisome in cases where children are abused and need protection,
because the options for helping them are tied to the family due to structural issues (Every
Child, 2012, UNICEF Report, 2011).
Methods and data
This study was part of an international research project on social work with families. The
general aim of the project was to obtain knowledge about how social workers work with
families in child welfare and protection services in different national contexts. This project
aimed at describing and analysing different forms of contact such as working with the
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
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family to support the child/youth, providing support to other members of the family or
with their relationship to various welfare providers such as the community and other
networks. These child welfare and family policies and practices were also studied within
gendered, generational and ethnic perspectives (Nygren & Oltedal, 2014).
Data were collected through focus group discussions with social workers in child
protection. Stewart and Shamdasani (2014) defined a focus group as an exercise in
collecting data through group interaction. The interaction part in focus groups makes it
possible to explore a specific set of issues in practice or the experience of contraception.
Kitzinger and Barbour (1999) highlight that the group is focused in the sense that it
involves a collective activity, which in the case of this study was debating on- and
discussing the assigned vignette. Kitzinger and Barbour (ibid) also stated that the
importance of using vignettes in focus groups entails giving the discussion not only a
direction, but also a common external reference point. The use of a vignette in this study
achieved this purpose and made the discussions more to the point, while capturing the
shared practical experiences of the participants. Two focus group discussions (FGDs)
were conducted in Lilongwe and Chikhwawa in December 2013 and January 2014,
respectively. The study purposefully chose these sites since Lilongwe is the capital city
located in an urban area, while Chikhwawa is in a rural area. In Lilongwe, two of the five
participants were female, whereas in Chikhwawa the sample was comprised of one
female and four male participants, thus yielding a total of three female and seven male
participants.
Purposive sampling, which consisted of identifying social workers working as child
protection workers, was used in recruiting the participants for the study with the help of
key personnel at the social welfare offices in both districts. These social workers came
from child protection departments in both government and non-governmental
organizations.
The data is based on a vignette that was prepared by the international research team in
the social work with family project (Nygren & Oltedal, 2014). According to Hughes and
Huby (2001), vignettes consist of text, images or other forms of stimuli to which research
participants are asked to respond. Vignettes can be presented to participants in a
number of different forms, e.g. like a story, a form that was adopted in this study. Hughes
and Huby (2001) added that vignettes provide a useful focus for discussion, and act as
a stimulus for the group’s discussion. The use of vignettes is recommended in focus
group discussions as they help to maximize the interaction between the facilitator and
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
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the group participants, as suggested by Kitzinger (1994). The FGDs involved reading
this vignette, which describes the life of Maria, a girl who got pregnant at the age of 14
from a short-relationship she had with a 16-year-old boy. Maria came from a house
where her father physically and verbally abused her mother, hence causing challenges
in raising her child. Maria had to give her child up for a short period in a foster home in
order to finish school. The vignette consisted of three situations and five group
discussion tasks that were discussed among the participants. The discussion tasks
included the following:
Task 1: How they understand the concept of “family” in their country, and how
they usually work with families in social work, and in particular in child welfare
work.
Maria 14 years - Task 2: What advice they would give the counsellor before the
next talk with Maria, and what further initiatives would they suggest that the
councillor should take? What other actions would the group recommend? (Who
will do what with whom?).
Maria 16 years - Task 3: Discuss what advice they would give the social worker
before he/she meets Maria in terms of informing her about a decision they have
made. And what further initiatives would they suggest in this case? What is the
role of Maria’s family in this?
Maria 18 years - Task 4: What advice would they give to the social worker at the
local public welfare service centre concerning his/her talk with Maria on these
topics, and what further initiatives should be taken in this case? What is the best
outcome for Maria and her family in the long run?
Task 5: Reflect on the case and its different stages, and discuss what this can tell
about how social workers in the local context reflect on- and cooperate with the
family (as in this case with Maria) Discuss how this case more generally can tell
something about the “welfare mix” in your country, which means the relationship
among NGOs, civil society, the family and the state as partners in a cooperation
to extend help in situations like the one with Maria.
The different age groups in the vignette helped to get a response regarding how social
workers relate to clients of different age groups. In Malawi, this was very important
because at the age of 14 most decisions regarding Maria were to be made by her
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
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parents. Since this was a vignette that was used in many countries, it was difficult to
make it fit completely into all the various contexts. The most important point then was to
focus on how different countries resolve the social problem that was portrayed in this
vignette. The vignette therefore addressed problems and service contexts that are
recognizable in all the countries. For example, the term foster home is not often used
when a child needs to be placed outside the home in Malawi, as most people live with
their extended family and not necessarily in a foster home.
The main focus of the study was on circumstances surrounding the decision to place
children outside the home or remain in the home. As a result, we did not analyse all parts
of the data that were collected, but only those related to the primary focus of the study.
Some sub-questions were also analysed from the stated tasks in the study to help further
explore the theme. These included: how social workers understand the term family, what
are the intervention methods employed by social workers when helping children, how
patriarchy affect social workers’ intervention into the families and lastly how social
workers coordinate with other professionals and the community when working with the
families. These questions were answered during discussion of the tasks in the vignette.
The responses from the participants and discussion points came from their practical
experiences related to the vignette. Thus, the participants used examples from their work
in the discussions, which gave a thick description on how they work with families in child
protection, while also enriching the data with practical information about social work in
Malawi.
The FGDs were conducted in Chichewa, which is Malawi’s mother tongue, and the data
was translated into English verbatim. The verbatim-transcribed FGD data was manually
analysed using a thematic content analysis, which is chiefly a coding operation- and data
interpretation process characterized by a careful, detailed, systematic examination and
interpretation of a particular material in an effort to identify patterns, themes, biases and
meanings (Berg, 2009: 338-339). Therefore, the themes, patterns and meanings were
the primary focus during the analysis. Theory and concepts provided the framework of
discussing and looking at such emerging themes in the text. The data was analysed
through the use of a qualitative content analysis, which involved reading systematically
through the data from the focus group’s discussions and making themes for the study.
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
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Euro centricity
The first observation in this study was how the vignette was placed in a Malawian context
with regard to social work with families. Nygren and Oltedal (2014) discuss how this
vignette might have a different understanding and focus in different contexts. As referred
to by Nygren & Oltedal, “Euro centricity” discusses how the family structures in the
vignette reflected typical features of cases within a European context. In Malawi, this
vignette did not reflect how the issues can be handled, though it did reflect a similarity
in issues/problems encountered by social workers. This means the issue that was being
discussed in the vignette is something that is very common in Malawi, a country with a
high percentage of teenage pregnancies according to Brabin et al. (1998), as well as
households with abusive fathers or husbands, which is also on the rise in Malawi as
stated by Bazargan-Hejazi et al. (2013). The scenario posed by the vignettes of teenage
pregnancy is therefore not new to Malawian social workers. However, the problem with
the vignette is that it only involved the immediate nuclear family, which is not as common
in Malawi as the extended family. In this respect, the vignette was Euro-centric, and
perhaps skewed the nature of subsequent focus group discussions. This was addressed
by the fact that this was a focus group discussion, which meant the participants could
interact as to how the situation could be reframed to suit a Malawian context.
Firstly, the absence of the extended family in this vignette was problematic for the
respondents because they believed in the discussed scenario that the presence of the
extended family was very important. The vignette focused on helping Maria outside her
extended family circle, which according to the participants was a Western practice. They
believed Maria could get a lot of help from her family members or obtain counselling
from community elders and not just trained social workers. Another contextual difference
was the availability of school counsellors, which was made as a presupposition in the
vignette. According to Maluwa-Banda (1998), counselling in most schools in Malawi is
non-existent, and where there is counselling the focus is on academic counselling, and
not on social or personal issues. Teachers double as counsellors and social workers,
albeit without undergoing any relevant training in counselling and social work. Of great
use in terms of counselling in Malawi are the community elders or religious leaders, who
in most cases take the role of counsellors. Religious leaders offer counselling from a
spiritual point of view, whereas community elders offer counselling from the
cultural/traditional point of view. Such a spatial contextual difference is very significant
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
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in this case, since the social workers had to answer with regard to their contextual
practices.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Family and child placement
In the study, family was defined as the union of a man and woman and their children,
together with relatives related to this union by marriage, kinship and blood. This is
essentially the extended family which includes the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins
and all those related to them. The responsibility of the family to the child is to protect the
child, provide for all its necessary needs and to care for the child. This is supported by
chapter 4 of the Malawi constitution as stated in the background. Since Malawi adopts
family-based care for the children, the state does not take a greater role in these aspects.
It was also mentioned that the extended family construction helps social workers in their
practice, as it widens the net for solutions whenever there is a problem in the immediate
family.
The discussions highlighted that social workers rely on the family to help the child in
different ways; in this case the family is seen as the problem solver. Since the family has
the sole responsibility for the welfare of children due to the Malawian family values, in
addition to the fact that the state leaves this responsibility to the family, social workers
depend on the family to provide, care for and protect the children. The participants stated
that in case of any problem that a child is facing, they try to help the parents so that the
parents can be able to help their children. As discussed by Pecora et al. (2012), this is
also evident in many Western countries, where the focus goes to helping the family or
parents first as a way of helping the child. The participants focused on the extended
family, as highlighted by one participant in this quote:
The extended family is very important in Malawi, in particular to child welfare
work. This is mainly because when a problem arises that concerns the child, as
social workers, we do not go outside the extended family to look for help. We try
to look within the extended family, for example if we think a child is being
abused and there is a need to take that child from the parents, the first option is
not in the foster homes but the extended family. We do this to let the child feel
the vibe of his or her family even when moved out from the biological parents.
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
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Kinship care is used as an alternative care in many societies. Aldgate and McIntosh
(2006) have discussed the development of the use of extended families in looking after
children in Scotland. In Malawi, kinship care is still one of the available alternatives for
caring for children. The goal of social work in Malawi is to help clients live a productive
life in their own community, so in order to achieve this goal, social workers often enlist
the assistance of family members, relatives, and other community leaders, as
highlighted in a study by Bandawe and Louw (1997). Working with the family takes
several routes, among these are counselling and financially empowering the family so
that they are able to provide for their children. It was also noted that the emphasis on
sourcing help within the family is due to the fact that social welfare as a department is
underfunded; therefore, it lacks options that would involve the department spending
money. There lays one of the critical points that inform social work practice concerning
the structural aspects of the Malawian context: a lack of resources in children’s
institutions enforces the social workers to opt for family help, as explained by one
participant:
...taking the child to be with another member of the family has to deal with the
fact that the department of social welfare in Malawi does not have several
options supported by the state. This is because we do not have places provided
by the government where children can go to when they are separated from their
families temporarily......we receive cases where there is a need to take the child
away from parents but the child doesn’t have a proper place to go to than within
the family. If we decide to take the child to an orphanage, I think that would not
be in the best interest of the child due to the bad conditions of the orphanages.
Social workers try as much as possible not to put children in foster homes, orphanages
and children’s homes, probably due to the bad state that most of these are in (Sabin et
al., 2011). They bemoaned the sexual abuse, culture and religious impositions and
emotional battles that children in institutionalized homes in Malawi face, both at the
hands of those who are supposed to protect them and from fellow children. To add to
this, most institutions are underfunded with many children to look after, thereby causing
a lack in basic necessities for institutionalized children. Furthermore, social workers
emphasized the importance of the child-parent attachment that is not possible in the
orphanages or in children’s homes. The Malawian social workers have the support of
Gordon, Guez and Allen (2000), who argue that, “Although institutionalization may be
necessary at times, it is a temporary solution.”
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
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It is a universal value in social work that the removal of a child is an option of last resort.
But in the case of Malawi, this value is accentuated because of poor state support and
the deplorable conditions of the alternative care facilities. The lack of sustainable
financial help to the vulnerable children explains the reasons for looking for help within
the family. The extended family is a coping strategy in the context of very limited financial
constraints that Malawi, like any other poor country, is grappling with. This should make
obvious sense, given that children’s homes, orphanages and any other supported
housing all require intensive financial capital to run.
In addition to financial constraints, culture also explains the preference of the extended
family regarding where children can be temporarily placed. The study found that social
workers want the children to stay with people of their tribe to help preserve the cultural
identity of the children, which might be disrupted if the child stays with people of a
different tribe. This clearly came from a study which revealed that foster homes or
children homes are not easy alternatives to come by, and as argued in child welfare
practice, it is considered a last resort when everything else has completely failed.
Social worker’s intervention methods with families
The study also analysed how social workers intervene in the families when helping
families in need. The study found that counselling is the most used intervention method
to help families deal with various problems and come to reach some goals together.
According to Sedan (2005), counselling is defined In this regard as a way of enabling
choice or change or reducing confusion. Sedan adds that this is done by listening
attentively and patiently, whereby the counsellor begins to perceive the difficulties from
the client’s point of view, which can help the client to possibly see things more clearly
from a different perspective. Sedan emphasizes that this means it does not involve
giving advice or directing a client to take a particular course of action, but instead
reaching desired goals together with the client. Both individual counselling and group
counselling sessions for the family members concerned were emphasized in this study.
However, it was noted in the study that counselling was also done mostly by community
leaders and religious leaders, and not necessarily limited to social workers. This is
mostly due to the fact that there are few trained counsellors. Counselling in school was
also problematic since most schools do not employ professional counsellors.
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
16
Reuniting the extended family came out of a study as another intervention method, in
which the social workers act as mediators between family members. The vignette stated
that Maria’s parents rarely return to the rural area where they come from, and apart from
a positive relationship with Maria’s grandparents they are isolated from other family
members. This entailed a sour relationship between Maria’s immediate family and the
extended family. The participants stated that uniting the family resulted in the building
capacity of the family, with the eventual benefit of achieving self-reliance at the family
level. The social workers stated that they negotiate with the family members to unite if
there are some tensions in the extended family, hence acting as mediators. The goal is
to include the extended family as part of the solution once they are united, since this
would be impossible if there are some disagreements within the family. The participants
stated that they act as mediators, and also involve the chiefs in this process. Yet,
Fonchingong and Fonjong (2003) highlight that the self-reliance discourse is faulted for
shifting responsibilities to individuals and families, whereby the state shuns its
responsibilities to the population masses characterized in familialized state regimes.
This of course is based on a political view regarding how the state should relate to its
citizens as a provider of service and an enabler of active citizenship. The respondents
mentioned that narrowing the gap between Maria and the extended relatives could help
broaden the options for care for Maria and her child. Unity within the extended family
was regarded as a precondition to successfully helping families to solve their own
problems.
Home assessment in this study was also considered as an intervention method, which
was thought to be one of the important preconditions for interventions. Social workers
do home assessments in order to ascertain how they are going to help the family, or
whether they can insist on taking a child from home or not. Home assessment focuses
on two fronts: social relationships and resource endowment. On the one hand, social
relationships entail assessing interpersonal relationships, as well as the physical-,
emotional- or sexual abuse of a spouse or children. On the other hand, resource
endowment aims at ascertaining the ability of the family to provide basic needs like food
for the family. Such data helps the social workers to know how best to help families that
are lacking in the short-run, as more sustainable strategies based on empowerment and
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
17
self-reliance principles are being pursued. This is also more rhetorical than it is practical
due to a lack of resources at the social welfare department.
Patriarchy and social work with families
Patriarchy, which according to Connell’s (2009) anthropological definition refers to
systems of male power and the oppression of women, can also be discussed as one of
the factors that influence social work practice according to this study. This study showed
that gender plays a role in the social work practice with families, in which cultural
traditions regard men as the head of the family, so their decision and consent is therefore
sought in many instances that involve the child. This can also be reflected in the
introduction part concerning matrilineal and patrilineal marriage systems, which shows
that regardless of the system, men have control over children, property and land. Thus,
in most cases, the male members of the family are entrusted with the decision regarding
the custody of children or any matters that involve children. One participant stated that:
The main reason for telling the father is that this is a sensitive matter, as it
involves the life of his child. Now in Malawi, no matter the behaviour of the man,
he is still respected and regarded as the head of the family, so he has to be
informed on every decision.
In this case, even though the vignette stated that Maria’s father was abusive, this did not
have an effect on his role as the head of the household. He was still respected as the
head of the family, and therefore the one to give consent on any decision to do with
taking the child or the grandchild out of the home.
The study also found that the presence of a male figure in the life of a child is more
symbolic with respect to culture and societal norms, than it is functional in terms of child
support. In this case, the presence of the father in a child’s life is more for the
community’s reputation, as illustrated in this statement by one of the participants:
The father of Penny has to show up in the child’s life so that Penny is not
regarded as a “bastard” child by the community. If he does not, Penny and her
mother might suffer ridicule in the society.
According to the participants, the absence of a male figure in Penny’s life would meet
resistance from the community. For this reason, there was no mention of the need for a
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
18
father in terms of child support or to help raise the child, but instead to have a good
reputation within the society. Hence, the presence of the father in this case was more
symbolic for the society, and not really about how this would benefit the child.
Patriarchy plays a role in many issues in Malawian society, and the family is one of the
avenues where it has a big impact on decision making. In this study, the participants
highlighted two things with regard to patriarchy: first was the fact that the father has to
give consent before any decision is implemented, and second was the need for the
symbolic presence of the father in a child’s life.
Cooperation between social workers and other stakeholders when helping the
family
According to the focus group participants, cooperation between social workers and other
stakeholders from other related fields in helping families is more in the urban areas than
in the rural areas. Social workers from Chikhwawa expressed challenges when
collaborating with other stakeholders from other professions. This was due to a lack of
social workers in institutions such as hospitals, prisons and schools that are present in
the cities, but not in districts such as Chikhwawa. Social workers in rural areas have to
link with community members or traditional authorities in helping the families. As a
consequence, there is a lack of cooperation between the social workers and other
professions that might be involved in child protection issues. As illustrated by a
participant from Chikhwawa:
…as social workers working with children in the communities, we are supposed
to work with other professionals. Unfortunately, there is little support that we get
from other professionals here apart from the help we get from traditional
authorities and other community members
By contrast, the social workers in Lilongwe stated that they work in collaboration with
other stakeholders in many ways. The reason why there is a difference between rural
and urban cooperation between social workers and other stakeholders is that there are
many organizations in the cities that support social workers. For example, in Lilongwe,
UNICEF has projects working with social workers in helping vulnerable children, but this
type of project is absent from- or not very active in rural areas. Secondly, unlike in
districts like Chikhwawa, there are social workers situated in most institutions in the
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
19
cities, such as in prisons, hospitals and other public institutions. In the FGDs, participants
perceived and suggested that support from other professionals in child welfare work was
more forthcoming in urban- as opposed to rural areas.
Religious organizations, traditional leaders and the community are all involved in helping
the family in collaboration with the social workers in rural areas. For decades, church-
related voluntary organizations have endeavoured to meet various social needs,
including offering counselling to couples and establishing shelter homes for children in
need. The active involvement of both religious leaders and elders in the extended family,
especially in relation to providing counselling to children and families, must be seen as
an adaptive strategy. It is a way of coping with Malawi’s shortage of social workers and
counsellors. However, it must be noted that children’s institutions under religious
organizations entail that the children adopt the beliefs of the religion that is supporting
the institution, which excludes other children if they do not belong to the religion that
sponsors the institution (Chitereka, 2009).
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Over the years, most African countries, including Malawi, have gradually assumed a
greater role as the principal source of social protection for children. In Harding’s (1997)
terms, this is balancing state intervention to protect children from poor parental care,
and to also help to maintain that children and parents stay together due to a lack of state
support. Although the family, the community and the church are still important actors in
the provision of welfare, they are no longer considered adequate in themselves to deal
with social problems that have emerged as a result of rapid social and technological
change (Rwomire & Raditlhokwa, 1996). This has brought about a need for state
intervention in social welfare, whereby social workers intervene in helping families. Even
if the family is universally acknowledged to be the best place for a child’s development
and well-being, situations sometime demand that children to be placed outside the
home, which is challenged by many factors in Malawi. Social workers’ professional
discretion is affected by patriarchal systems, culture, state regulations and professional
value. Therefore, even when it is necessary for a child to be placed outside the home as
per a professional assessment, economic aspects can be a hindrance to this decision.
The department of social welfare’s lack of the resources needed to take care of the child
once he/she has been taken out of the family discourages social workers from placing
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
20
children in an institution, even if only temporally. It can therefore be stipulated that
financial development in the social welfare services could empower social workers by
equipping them with resources for better options/institutions for children who are placed
outside the home. Due to the rise in orphan children, many people have the responsibility
of taking care of children of their relatives, thus causing an unavailability of foster homes
(Bandawe & Louw 1997; Sabin et al., 2011). This also limits foster homes as an
alternative regarding where children can be placed when they are temporarily placed
outside their home.
Patriarchy also seems to play a role by giving men or the fathers of the child decisive
authority as to what decisions can be made regarding their children. Social workers
therefore have to appeal to their professional discretion but also respect the system of
the context of their practice, which also affects their decisions regarding placing a child
outside the home. The factors discussed in this article show that social workers work
towards improving situations in homes to enhance that children should as much as
possible remain with their families. In summary, the findings show that family dynamics,
especially patriarchal structures, culture and the economic status of Malawi as a country,
direct how social workers work with families in child protection work with regard to
placing children outside the home.
Social workers in this study emphasized the importance of helping children within the
immediate- and extended family to help cope with the lack of financial resources needed
to provide alternative options. Inasmuch as the choice of this approach is brought about
by a lack of resources, it is worth noting that the social workers always try to work in the
best interest of the child. In this way, helping the families to take care of their children
ensures that the child grows up in a familiar environment while receiving help from social
welfare. This can therefore be looked at in terms of the strengths of having the child be
raised in the family, where as one participant said, “It helps the child to feel the vibe of
the family.”
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2015/1
21
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