TITLE:
An Exploration of Community-Based Services and Resources Available to Boost the Capabilities of AIDS-Orphaned Adolescents and Primary Caregivers to Achieve Emotional and Psychosocial Wellbeing
AUTHORS:
Mmapula Petunia Tsweleng
KEYWORDS:
Community-Based Services, AIDS-Orphaned Adolescents, Primary Caregivers, Stakeholders
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.11 No.5,
May
31,
2023
ABSTRACT: Children and families affected by Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) often struggle to achieve their valuable goals due to experiences of stigma and discrimination, lack of socioeconomic support, and unattended grief among others. Research shows that, such experiences have been found to be associated with the mental health problems individuals affected by AIDS often suffers. The current study explored community-based services and resources available to assist AIDS-orphaned adolescents and primary caregivers to achieve emotional and psychosocial wellbeing. The exploration was based on the narratives of stakeholders who provides services within the Health, Social, Education, and Community and Youth Development Work sectors to meet the needs of orphans and vulnerable children and their primary caregivers. The study used a qualitative methodological framework with narrative inquiry approach. In-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted with 6 purposefully selected stakeholders. Results shows that the majority of stakeholders provided psychosocial and educational services—mainly to orphans. These services, which were adequately rendered, included bereavement counselling, regular assistance with homework and other school projects, home visits, provision of school uniform as per need, group therapy, and life skills activities. It was further stated that the services have made a visible positive impact on the socio-emotional and cognitive functioning of the orphans. For example, most of these orphans consistently participated in sports, extra-mural life skills programmes, and performed highly academically. Some stakeholders’ services were aimed at providing relevant support to the primary caregivers—who were mostly grandmothers. The caregiver support services included support groups where grandmothers shared their challenges and learned from each other (through the facilitation of stakeholder), parent-child communication stimulation workshops, self-actualisation activities such as sewing and gardening. The self-actualisation activities enhanced caregivers’ self-confidence and promoted their sense of self-significance. It was reported that through good maintenance of vegetable gardens, caregivers were able to feed themselves and the orphans, and that through sewing they were able to create beautiful garments to sell and earn a much needed cash. It was stated that, these activities enabled primary caregivers to cope well with caregiving responsibilities and other challenges. However, although the mentioned services were commendable for promoting stronger wellbeing among adolescents orphaned due to AIDS and their primary caregivers, there has been an identification of cases where clinical psychological interventions were needed to adequately assist with issues related to unresolved grief and posttraumatic stress. The stakeholders reported that such interventions have been missing within community programmes. The absence of the mentioned interventions meant that, orphans and caregivers who presented externalised behaviours could not receive qualified support and that the much needed positive caregiving relationships could not be achieved. That said, there is a need for the government to initiate relevant clinical interventions that can provide opportunities for adolescent orphans and their caregivers to achieve optimal psychosocial functioning and overall wellbeing. Furthermore, caregiver-focused interventions need to be expanded as findings shows that, most of existing programmes were aimed at working with orphans—and only few dealt with primary caregivers. There should be more programmes to reach and boost the emotional wellbeing, socioeconomic and caregiving capabilities of many more primary caregivers affected by AIDS, particularly in low-income communities.