Social welfare services offered at shelters to female victims of domestic violence

[摘要] An exploratory and descriptive research design was selected together with acombination of both a quantitative and qualitative research approach to obtain thenecessary information, insight and knowledge regarding the social welfare servicesoffered to female victims of domestic violence in shelters. The motivation for thisinvestigation stemmed from the lack of information on social welfare services offeredto these female victims. The researcher became aware of this lack of information dueto the fact that only limited studies and investigations had been done into the socialwelfare services offered to female victims of domestic violence within South Africa.The goal of this study is therefore to gain a better understanding of the social welfareservices offered to female victims of domestic violence in shelters in order to providerecommendations to social service practitioners for the improvement of social welfareservices in such circumstances.The literature study firstly focused on the theories, conceptualisation and dimensionsof domestic violence in order to gain an understanding and knowledge base of thetheories that describe domestic violence, concepts that provide an understanding ofthe phenomenon of domestic violence as well the dimensions of domestic violence.Furthermore, the literature study focuses on the policies, legislations and thegovernment's commitment to address domestic violence in South Africa. The primaryfocus of the literature study was to investigate the social welfare services that areoffered to female victims of domestic violence in shelters.The researcher contacted the Department of Social Development of the WesternCape in order to identify the shelter organisations that offer social welfare services tofemale victims of domestic violence and finally a purposive sampling was done of tenshelters in the Western Cape Metropole area which offer social welfare services tofemale victims of domestic violence. A qualitative and quantitative investigation wasperformed by means of conducting semi-structured interviews with the aid of aninterview guide. The results of the investigation mainly confirmed the findings of the literature studythat domestic violence is an inherent part of the life in South Africa, also thatdomestic violence has a variety of causes and consequences and that social welfareservices offered to female victims of domestic violence are an important part of theprocess of empowerment in shelters.The recommendations were aimed at services in shelters and professional personsinvolved in the rehabilitation and empowerment of abused women during theiraccommodation in the shelters. The recommendations also included further researchto explore the impact of these social welfare services on female residents, and toaddress the areas where social welfare services fall short in order to provide insightinto the development of other social welfare services that are needed by femaleresidents when entering a shelter.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University