Prof Rasool got a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University in the UK, where she did her master’s and doctoral degrees in the Social Policy department. When she completed her Master’s, she was head-hunted by the Institute for Security Studies to conduct a research project on violence against women in South Africa, which included the write-up of a national survey on violence against women. She then extended the survey with focus groups with the researchers, who spoke to all the survivors of GBV interviewed in the study. “I then decided to go back to Oxford to do my doctorate on Help-Seeking After Domestic Violence, which was a continuation of this work on GBV. It was during my doctorate that I joined the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in 2007.” Prof Rasool has been with the institution for 17 years now and currently is Head of the Department of Social Work and Community Development. In terms of the work done by the Department, Prof Rasool believes that they initially shifted social work education to a social development approach from a welfare residual approach, which was the previous government’s approach under the inspirational influence of Prof Leila Patel. “Prof Leila Patel instituted the Social Development approach into the welfare paper and so we had to transition our curriculum into a social development approach. We were fortunate enough to have Prof. Patel leading the department at the time, and subsequent HODs followed this approach,” she said. Post the Fees Must Fall movement, they started thinking of ways to decolonise the curriculum. “We embarked on a process to decolonise our social work curriculum and infused some of the core principles of decoloniality into our curriculum. It wasn’t just about the
curriculum but about changing ourselves. We embarked on an intensive process with staff and students, which looked into how we understood decolonisation as a team and how all of us could work towards a decolonised curriculum as a team, with core values and principles that would guide the work that we do,” she said. The Department offers two programmes - an undergraduate degree in Social Work and an undergraduate degree in Community Development at Soweto. Two Master’s degrees - one in Clinical Social Work and the other in Community Development. A Master’s by research and a Doctoral programme is also offered. “With these qualifications, we see a lot of students entering the NGO space and the Department of Social Development. South African social workers are also in demand overseas. We also see some of them go into other kinds of fields such as Human Resources (HR) and some go into corporate, because the kind of skills you learn in social work are dynamic and versatile which include people skills, facilitation skill and running community projects,” she added. On what plans she has for the Department, Prof Rasool said she would love for it to be one of the best in the country, if not the best. “We are very close to getting there, as we want to attract strong social worker academics to the Department, who have a high publication record and visibility in the media. We want to ensure that our work stands out so that it impacts on society more broadly. It’s important for us to have an influence as researchers and academics on social change. We want to get to a point where there is a greater working relationship between us and government departments, so that we can solve our social problems and that we have stronger institutions and systems to support people in need,” she said.
Prof Rasool with the team of staff members of the Department of Social Work and Community Development
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