14 FACULTY OF HUMANITIES ANNUAL REPORT 2021 In addition to teaching 28 undergraduate and honours theory modules, plus 14 master’s coursework modules across seven degrees, the department also teaches eight internship or work integrated learning modules. These latter modules entail (mostly) weekly small group skills development classes that run across the year, plus time (from 2 hours to 3 days per week) in the field working with clients, doing counselling, running groups and facilitating community development projects. Every student receives one-onone professional supervision and is placed in a selected and monitored placement in a community around Johannesburg. This is substantial undertaking, over and above the usual theory classes and postgraduate supervision that all departments engage in. The department’s staff received several awards in 2021: • Ms Mashigo’s G4G Mentorship Project won 2nd position in the Faculty Flagship Projects during the annual Community Engagement Service Excellence Awards. She was also the Master of Ceremonies for the event. • Prof van Breda was awarded Lifetime Membership of the international resilience network ‘Resilio’ for his seven-year service as Vice President. • Prof van Breda was honoured by the Association of South African Social Work Education Institutions (ASASWEI) with their Lifetime Achievement Award. The department’s staff are actively involved in work outside the borders of the university, building society through advancing scholarship and promoting international partnerships, for example: • Dr Baikady, a postdoctoral research fellow from India, supervised by Dr Nadesan, is undertaking a cross university (international) study on decolonisation of social work education in South Africa, India and China. • Dr Nadesan has been President of ASASWEI from 2019 to 2021 and has steered all universities through the challenges of teaching social work during Covid. • Dr Nadesan instituted a five-year international partnership agreement with Rajagiri College of Social Sciences in Kerala, India. • Prof Raniga has an international teaching and research partnership with Dortmund University of Applied Sciences in Germany. She is principal researcher of a comparative study between Germany and South Africa on the psychosocial and economic experiences of single mothers working in the formal work sector. • Prof Rasool is the Chair of the International Conference on Gender and Sexuality. • Prof Rasool is Vice President of the Association of Schools of Social Work in Africa (ASSWA), and the Africa representative on the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW), where she has championed pan-African engagement and is centring issues that are pertinent for Africa in international social work forums. • Prof van Breda leads international (INTRAC) and pan-African (ANCR) research networks on the transition from care to young adulthood. • Prof van Breda ran two international master classes on writing great introductions for journal articles. • Prof van Breda represents the department on the U21 Community of Practice for Social Work. • Prof van Breda retired after seven years as Vice President of an international resilience research network called Resilio, where he has worked to promote African conceptions of and research on resilience globally. • Prof van Breda serves on the NRF rating panel for anthropology, development studies, geography, social work and sociology. • Staff have close working relationships with colleagues at universities in Botswana, Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, Ghana, India, Malawi, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Palestine, Swaziland, United Kingdom, West Indies and Zimbabwe. Staff are involved in ploughing their expertise back into the field, to improve people’s quality of life through community engagement, for example: • Dr Nadesan is a Board member of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) South Africa and represents AA South Africa regionally and internationally. • Dr Nadesan serves on the International Applications Committee of the SACSSP, the SACSSP CPD Approval Committee, and the COGTA National Disaster Bursary Committee. • Dr Sobantu is working with social workers and older persons in two residential care facilities for older persons to empower older persons and their families understand their rights and responsibilities as spelled out in the Act and the Constitution. • Ms Mashigo coordinated and facilitated a mentoring project for UJ female students. The project, Girls4Girls (G4G), aims to arm young women with the courage, vision, and skills to take on public leadership through a nurturing and supportive environment. The UJ cohort of 2021 graduated 42 mentees. • Prof Naidoo provides psychological support to health care workers (HCWs) who are in the frontline of the fight against Covid-19. Many of these HCWs
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