Challenges of Social Workers in Involving Parents in the Intervention Process of Young Persons Misusing Substances

Substance misuse among young people is a widespread phenomenon and continues to rise. Even though parents are the primary support system of a young person and unavoidably suffer the consequences of problem, they are often excluded in the intervention of a young person misusing substances. This study sought to understand the challenges of social workers in involving parents in the intervention process of young persons misusing substances. The family systems theory was employed as a theoretical base for the study. Thus, a qualitative semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 11 individual participants. Furthermore, non-probability purposive sampling was adopted to recruit a sample of social workers at the 10 service points of the Gauteng Department of Social Development (DSD), in the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (CTMM). Five themes emerged from the interviews, namely inadequate information provided by a young person misusing substances, parents’ employment status, nature of the social work intervention process to a young person misusing substances, poor parent/child relationship, majority age of a young person misusing substances and confidentiality barriers in the professional relationship, and a lack of parents’ insight. To enhance the quality of the social work intervention process to a young person misusing substances, there is a need for parents to be actively involved throughout the recovery process of a young person.