The definitions given above guide the social workers to write the contents of the moves found in the reports. The policy connects with the overall purpose in the sense that social workers write their reports in order to meet the descriptions or recommendations made in the policy. It is important to look at how particular moves are written in order to achieve the goals as will be discussed in the following section describing how the moves fit in the overall purpose (for example the chronic health conditions are discussed in move three, while the income and assets are discussed in move 4). This will be discussed in the next section on how the policy influences the social workers to make their recommendations. The social workers make the recommendations based on what the policy defines as a destitute person. This is done irrespective of the current economic status in the country because the policy was revised in 2002 long before the recession. At times people who are not recommended in these reports deserve to have been recommended. Unfortunately their status will not be included in the descriptions in the destitution policy. It is not adequate enough to use the criterion of livestock possession because a person can have four livestock units and still need to be helped.
Although Batswana are communal society, it is difficult for people to depend on siblings as their siblings also have their families to take care of. There is an economic change that affects the contributions or relationships in households in terms of financial support. For example; in the current life situation, four units of livestock cannot sustain a family. P120 or P150 may be not sufficient as prices have
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gone up. Therefore there should be some other criteria that the social workers use to help the clients to benefit or not benefit as destitute persons. Based on the current economic situation, the social workers should base their recommendations on the number of dependents rather than just suggesting a lump sum of money. They should focus on the needs of the clients whether it is food shelter or any other form of support. They have no choice but to follow what is recommended in the policy as explained below. For example when asked about how they make recommendations:
Extract 4.3
What sort of things helps the client to be assisted? Can I cite an example; in the case where there was a family that was earning P800 a month and that was the income for the whole family, and the person was not recommended to benefit as a destitute person. OD: We are guided by the guidelines that guide us and we also have
this thing …what do we call these things, how can I forget? I forgot the
right word but it’s a booklet kind of, with regulations, with terms and
conditions that explains what a destitution person is. For example, in
Botswana a destitute person, when you talk of monetary terms it’s
somebody who is earning not more than P120 without dependents.
With dependants I think it’s around P150 or less. So just see now, when
you talk about 800 bucks, that person is way out of the set cut point.
What was the criteria for that because right now, P100 buys 5 things from the shop?
O.D. Yah, that’s the unfortunate thing about this, I think this thing needs to be reviewed if you ask me. It’s something that was developed
in 1994-2004, I’m not very certain about the years, but that’s the date
that I think. [Interview with O.D 22.2.2011]
The description made by K.J in the interview discussed in the intake sheet section 4.2.4, clearly indicates that the intake sheet builds up the content of the social enquiry report. It also shows why there is a difference in the way the social enquiry report is written because individuals interpret the intake sheet differently as verified
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by interviews above. It also poses challenges to the social workers as they have stated that they conduct the interviews in Setswana and have to write the documents in English. Tsang (2007) claims that, in social work there is an inherent incompatibility between “the oral mode of direct practice and the literate mode of written communication for professional and administrative purposes” (p.53). Some of the sections of the intake sheet determine (provide information for) the moves that are identified in the destitution report. For example all the details in section 3 are move 1 in the reports. Section 5 and 6 provide the social background of the client which is move 3; section 10 provides information for move 6 while section 11 is recommendations which are found in move 8 in the reports.
There is a relationship between the documents discussed above; the procedure for writing the report will not be adequate if one of the documents is not used. They tend to rely on one another, that is, there cannot be a home visit without a case register, and the social worker cannot come up with a detailed report if there was no home visit or no intake sheet. Further the destitution policy entirely guides the facts to be included in the report as well as the structure of the report. In what follows, I will first briefly discuss the structure of the reports before looking at what determines whether the client can be assisted or not as stated in moves.