Abstract: Submission #143

Abstract Literature showing that Africans use traditional African indigenous knowledge before approaching Western knowledge and medicine is abundant. Secondly, individualisation, a founding Social Work Principle, calls for social work interventions guided by clients’ beliefs and perspectives. Imported social work pedagogy and epistemology, however, are possible barriers for full integration of the complimentary knowledge systems in praxis while a complimentary African-Western model would seem most appropriate in Africa. This conceptual idea therefore proposes an integrated African-Western social work praxis for Mental Health Promotion and Treatment in Africa.
The presentation will therefore demonstrate how African indigenous knowledge may be integrated into social work epistemology and praxis through: (i) partnering with African indigenalists in training, (ii) collaborating with African indigenalists in treatment of complex psychosociological conditions such as Anxiety Disorders, (iii) forging a multisectoral referral community-tertiary services network between social workers and African indigenalists.