INTERPRETING USERS’ EXPERIENCES OF SERVICE DELIVERY IN THE WESTERN CAPE USING A NORMATIVE FRAMEWORK
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15270/44-2-245Abstract
The South African government recognises its role in delivering services for addressing povertyand does so through social security and social development programmes based in different
service delivery organisations (White Paper for Social Welfare, 1997). The importance of
ascertaining the views of social service users is becoming more prevalent in human service
delivery and has been established particularly in the fields of mental health and disability and in
the new social movements (Beresford & Croft, 2004). For example, in the United Kingdom
service users are increasingly participating in the education, training and assessment of social
work students, in research and in wider decision making, such as participation in social policy
development (Beresford, Page & Stevens, 1994; Cornwall & Gaventa, 2001a; Hanley, 2005;
Joans & Gaventa, 2002; Levin, 2004). Over the past two decades new legislation has made the
participation of service users a requirement in the planning and development of services;
however, it has been found that exclusionary structures within organisations, institutional
practices and professional attitudes affect the extent to which change can by achieved by service
users (Carr, 2007).
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