Abstract: Submission #35

Abstract This article employs qualitative document analysis to investigate the relevance of ecological social work through a purposeful selection of policies, frameworks, reports, and literature informing social work curricula. While the article focused on Southern Africa, the South African social work curricula served as the immediate point of reference as documented through the exit-level outcomes and standards, respectively. A defining challenge in this regard is tapping into social work education, practice, and literature related to ecology, based on the rise of natural disasters. Southern Africa, like the rest of the world, is confronted by natural disasters that pose a threat to human life and degradation and destruction of the sustainable physical (natural) environment. The ecosystemic theoretical lens served to explain the humanenvironment interaction. This article calls for a review of education and practice among the helping professions and propounds for the alternative and reviewed understanding of the
natural environment, with the person of the place viewed in interaction with the environment. This article recommends reimagined alternative and reviewed interventions, which are African-based, conceptually-relevant, and context-driven. The article concludes the marginalisation of the natural environment in social work education and practice propounds promoting awareness, understanding, and designing interventions that advance environmental sustainability.
Keywords: Person-in-environment, person of a place, natural environment, African-centred perspective