16-Oct-2019

Nadesan, Varoshini Subramoney (DLitt et Phil)
Varoshini Nadesan graduated as a social worker at UDW in 1986. She completed
her Masters in Child and Youth Care Work at UNISA in 2009. She worked for 20
years in Chatsworth, KwaZulu-Natal in the field of child protection and crime
prevention and offender programmes, at the levels of senior and chief social
worker. In 2006 she was appointed as National Manager at the South African
Council for Social Service Professions, responsible for the professional conduct of
social workers nationally. She joined the University of Johannesburg in 2012 as
lecturer at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Varoshini Nadesan’s doctoral study addresses the signature pedagogy in social
work education: field instruction. This is the practical part of social work training,
where students integrate what they’ve learned into real-life situations. There has
been little research on field instruction internationally. In this study, Varoshini
interviewed a diverse range of participants and documents, generating three rich
case studies of field instruction programmes in urban and rural universities using
different models of field instruction. She has creatively applied systems theory to
field instruction, taking theory about field instruction to a new level of sophistication.
She highlights the complex interactions between a range of role players, with
competing demands and limitations, all working towards the development of a
social work practitioner. She identifies key systems processes that facilitate or
hinder this common goal. Through this, she generates recommendations for
strengthening field instruction in social work education in South Africa.
Supervisor: Prof ADP van Breda
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