Mitigating Family and Gender-Based Violence Through Parent Empowerment: A South African Perspective

Despite having progressive policies and legislation, South Africa records a high incidence of child abuse and neglect. According to the South African Constitution, children have the right to protection from maltreatment, neglect, abuse, or degradation, and the right to social services. Social workers at the child and family welfare organizations are responsible for delivering child protection services to at-risk children and families. Government policies stipulate the importance of prevention services for child protection. These prevention services should focus on programs to mitigate risk factors for family and gender-based violence. The child protection system in South Africa can be described as being in a state of crisis, due to the soaring caseloads of social workers, and a lack of human and financial resources. This means that social workers often find it difficult to develop and implement prevention and early intervention programs. Consequently, a literature review was conducted to establish the nature of existing policy and legislative guidelines for the implementation of prevention programs to mitigate family and gender-based violence. Policies including the Framework for Welfare Services (RSA, Framework for Social Welfare Services, Department of Social Development, Pretoria, 2013) call for a developmental approach to intervention. This chapter seeks to explore how parent empowerment can mitigate family and gender-based violence.