Seventeenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Studies on the workplace protection of social service professionals- such as social workers, show that this group is at high risk of being subjected to client violence during their careers. The research formed part of a larger study investigating client violence among South African social workers. The objective of this specific study was to explore experiences of client violence among South African social workers. The researchers used a purposive sample to identify participants for semi-structured qualitative interviews and data were analysed by implementing Tesch’s approach of thematic analysis. The primary themes that emerged focused on aspects such as the normalization of client violence, identifying precursors to violence, defining elements in the process and the aftermath of client violence. These themes and related sub-themes were used to construct a conceptual model to better understand the client violence phenomenon. Despite the fact that this study was focused on social workers in South Africa, results could be useful for interdisciplinary studies in international social science research.