Social work practice in Ghana: Changing dynamics, challenges and opportunities

Social Work is described as a helping profession since it is a professional practice that provides services aimed at helping societies work better for their people. It is also designed to assist people with varying degrees of social problems function better within society. While social work started in the pre-independence era as the provision of social welfare services, it is slowly making its way through the Ghanaian society. Like the Western societies where the profession developed, Ghana is also beset with a host of social problems that call for professional social work interventions. Using the history of the social work profession in the Western world as a backdrop, this chapter explores the development of the social work profession in Ghana from the colonial times to the present. It examines some of the social problems in the country that call for professional social work intervention. The chapter concludes with a call for a revamped social work education in the face of the changing dynamics of the profession which present challenges as well as opportunities to develop new practice paradigms within an indigenous context.