Introduction
In a world marked by secularization, individualism, and globalization, social workers face a multitude of professional challenges that test the very foundations of their practice. These challenges are particularly fragile in a context where poverty, inequality, and social exclusion are exacerbated by structural violence, armed conflict, and weak state institutions. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and specifically the city of Bukavu in South Kivu province, exemplifies such a context.
Social work in Bukavu operates at the intersection of humanitarian crisis and chronic underdevelopment. The city and its peripheries are confronted with multiple scourges: insecurity, poverty, unemployment, chronic disease, armed conflict, and juvenile delinquency that expose a significant portion of the population to vulnerability. Children, women, the elderly, and persons living with disabilities bear the heaviest burden, experiencing physical, psychological, social, and moral suffering. Yet the very professionals tasked with accompanying these populations face conditions that undermine their effectiveness and well-being.
This article draws on empirical research conducted in eight social action institutions in Bukavu, including Panzi General Reference Hospital/SVS project, Ekabana Center, Don Bosco Youth Center, SOSAM Psychiatric Center, BVES, WaWe, ARPS, and FOSAD, through semi-structured interviews with 22 social workers and 8 institutional directors. The research aimed to identify the professional challenges facing social workers in Bukavu and document the strategies they employ to overcome them.
The context of Social Work in Bukavu
Social work in the DRC remains in an embryonic state. Despite the existence of scattered legislative texts, including Ministerial Order No. 063/CAB.MIN.AEE.SAH.SN/2012 concerning the creation and organization of social assistants, and Law No. 09/001 of January 10, 2009 on child protection, these instruments are insufficient to regulate the profession adequately (Balegamire et al., 2018). The result is a profession that lacks clear legal recognition, standardized training requirements, and formal mechanisms for professional accountability. Beyond the persistent regulatory void, the training and professional development of social workers constitutes a significant challenge. Throughout the DRC, only two higher education institutions offer formal social work education: the Université Évangélique en Afrique (UEA) in the eastern region and the Institut National du Travail Social (INTS) in Kinshasa, both established in 2013. Since their inception, these two institutions have remained the sole providers of social workers' training in the country, yet they continue to operate within a context marked by acute scarcity of academic resources and inadequate infrastructure.
In Bukavu, social workers operate within institutions that serve extremely vulnerable populations. Their interventions span multiple domains: gerontology, support for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, child protection, mental health, and community reintegration. However, the majority of practitioners have been trained in disciplines other than social work, namely sociology, psychology, nursery, rural development technicians, mental health, and community organization which exposes them to specific challenges when confronted with cases requiring specialized social work methods.
Professional challenges
This research identified three interrelated professional challenges: (1) working conditions, (2) institutional and organizational challenges, and (3) emotional and relational challenges.
Working conditions
Social workers in Bukavu face severe resource constraints. The number of practitioners is grossly insufficient relative to the population in need. Material resources are equally limited. Social workers lack basic equipment, offices, telephones, computers and transportation to conduct home visits. The precarious security situation in Eastern DRC compounds these difficulties. Activities that once occurred at night, such as outreach to street children, have been paralyzed due to insecurity. Social workers thus operate in an environment where their own safety is not guaranteed.
Institutional and organizational challenges
Social work in Bukavu suffers from a profound lack of professional recognition. This misunderstanding extends to colleagues in other disciplines and even to hierarchical superiors who conflate social workers with psychologists. The consequences are significant: marginalisation in decision-making processes, confusion over professional roles, and diminished trust among beneficiaries who expect material or financial assistance rather than psychosocial support. Furthermore, frequent changes in institutional leadership and shifting donor priorities create organisational instability that undermines programme continuity and long-term planning.
Inter-institutional collaboration is also problematic. Competition for funding and jurisdictional conflicts between public structures and NGOs create tensions that impede effective service delivery.
Emotional and relational challenges
The daily confrontation with human suffering exposes social workers to compassion fatigue and emotional exhaustion. Relationships with beneficiaries present additional difficulties. Unrealistic expectations viewing social workers primarily as sources of material aid rather than psychosocial support generate frustration and eroded trust. Some beneficiaries resist change or manifest distrust toward institutions, complicating interventions. Others are not grateful for services provided or fail to attend follow-up meetings.
The combination of workload, resource scarcity, and emotional demands creates chronic stress that, without adequate support structures, risks culminating in burnout, a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment first theorized by Freudenberger (1974) and systematized by Maslach.
Table 1: synthesizes the professional challenges identified across the three main categories.
Category | Specific challenges | Key manifestations | Participant quotes |
|---|---|---|---|
Working Conditions | •Excessive workload | • Working 8:00 AM–5:00 PM daily plus evening work at home. | "We are only two people practicing social work, yet the people we accompany are very numerous, and every day we register new cases" (Antony) |
Institutional & Organizational | •Lack of professional recognition | •Public misunderstanding of social work role | "Social work is not yet recognized like other professions; people always ask what social work is and what social workers are for" (Biringanine) |
Emotional & Relational | • Compassion fatigue | • Daily exposure to suffering, poverty, abuse | "Every day we are called to interact with multiple categories of people in difficult situations... which exposes us to stress and emotional exhaustion" (Hélène) |
Resilience strategies
Despite these formidable challenges, social workers in Bukavu have developed resilience strategies that enable them to continue their mission. The most significant is peer support through experience-sharing. As Augustin explained:
"When I encounter difficulties related to my work, I call on my service colleagues to discuss them together and find solutions".
These exchanges provide emotional ventilation, practical advice, and professional solidarity.
Consultation with social workers from other institutions serves a similar function. Jean described:
"Sometimes I feel so stressed, exhausted, and even affected by certain situations of the people I accompany; at that moment, I contact my social worker friends from another institution who give me advice, we share experiences to clarify problematic situations, and they lift my morale".
Teamwork within multidisciplinary settings, collaborating with psychologists and medical professionals, also enables social workers to address complex cases that no single practitioner could manage alone. These collective approaches foster mutual learning, shared responsibility, and enhanced problem-solving capacity.
Table 2: summarizes the resilience strategies identified, their mechanisms, and outcomes.
Strategy | Mechanism | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
Experience-sharing among colleagues | Regular meetings to discuss difficulties, share solutions, express emotions, and receive listening and comfort | • Prevention of professional stress and fatigue |
Consultation with social workers from other institutions | Contacting peers in other institutions for advice, moral support, and fresh perspectives | • Emotional relief |
Teamwork | Multidisciplinary collaboration with psychologists, medical professionals, and other staff to address complex cases | • Collective learning |
Discussion
The findings from this study corroborate and extend existing research on professional challenges facing social workers in Africa. The working conditions identified excessive workload, insufficient staff, and material resource deficits align with Asamah's (2023) observation that most African social workers lack basic equipment and transportation, compromising their effectiveness. The insecurity challenges resonate with Mupedziswa's (2015) documentation of how armed conflict and civil war in the DRC create enormous needs while simultaneously undermining service delivery capacity.
The institutional and organizational challenges, particularly the lack of professional recognition and confusion of social work roles with other professions, reflect broader patterns identified by Balegamire et al. (2018), who noted that social work in the DRC remains unrecognized as a profession, with interventions under-funded and unregulated. This recognition deficit has profound consequences: it marginalizes social workers in institutional decision-making, perpetuates public misunderstanding of the profession, and enables untrained individuals to present themselves as social workers. The emotional and relational challenges documented in this study are consistent with burnout theory (Freudenberger, 1974; Maslach & Leiter, 2016). Social workers in Bukavu experience the classic triad of burnout symptoms: emotional exhaustion from daily exposure to suffering, depersonalization through affective distancing as a coping mechanism, and reduced personal accomplishment from working in under-resourced conditions that limit their effectiveness. The lack of formal supervision and support mechanisms exacerbates these risks.
Social workers in Bukavu occupy multiple roles: professional helper, institutional representative, and community actor, with contradictory expectations. They are expected to deliver quality services without adequate resources, recognized as professionals yet treated as mere assistants, and charged with complex psychosocial interventions without specialized training. These role conflicts and ambiguities generate significant stress and role overload.
Despite these formidable challenges, social workers in Bukavu have developed informal resilience strategies. The reliance on peer support and experience-sharing reflects the strength of social capital in resource-constrained settings. These informal mechanisms, while valuable, cannot substitute for formal institutional support systems such as professional supervision, continuing education, and adequate material resources. The contrast between the severity of challenges and the informality of coping strategies highlights the need for systematic institutional interventions.
Recommendations
Addressing professional challenges requires multi-level interventions at individual, institutional and systemic levels. At the individual level, continuous professional development through training workshops, seminars, and refresher courses on case management, professional communication, stress prevention, and burnout recognition would enhance technical and human competencies. At the institutional level, professional supervision and mentorship programs would provide spaces for practice analysis, emotional support, and skill development. Peer support groups, organized monthly within and across institutions, would foster solidarity, emotional ventilation, and collective identity. At the systemic level, advocacy for legislative recognition of social work as a profession, improved working conditions, adequate material resources, and formal regulatory frameworks is essential. Public awareness campaigns, through community sessions, radio broadcasts, and open days, would enhance understanding of the social work role and reduce inappropriate expectations.
Conclusion
Social workers in Bukavu operate in an environment of extreme constraint: insufficient numbers, inadequate resources, limited recognition, and constant exposure to human suffering. Yet they continue to serve vulnerable populations with dedication and creativity, drawing on peer support and collective problem-solving to sustain their practice. The findings from Bukavu underscore the urgent need for legislative reform, institutional strengthening, and professional development to enable social workers to fulfil their mission effectively. The experience of Bukavu offers lessons for social workers everywhere who navigate the tension between professional ideals and structural constraints.
References (selective)
Balegamire, C., & al. (2018). Note d'orientation sur le travail social en RDC. [Unpublished manuscript / Institutional document]. Université Évangélique en Afrique, Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Freudenberger, H. J. (1974). Staff burn-out. Journal of Social Issues, *30*(1), 159–165. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1974.tb00706.x
Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2016). Understanding the burnout experience: Recent research and its implications for psychiatry. World Psychiatry, *15*(2), 103–111. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20311