Foster care of AIDS orphans : social workers' perspectives

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The goal of this study is to shed some light on the needs of children orphaned by AIDSas well as on the training and support that their foster parents will need, in order toprovide guidelines for equipping foster parents to care for AIDS orphans. The motivationfor this study was the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in the South Africa and the one millionSouth African AIDS orphans left in its wake. Most of these children end up in substitutehomes, and many of them in foster care. Researchers agree that AIDS orphans havespecial needs because of the circumstances surrounding their parents' death. Fosterparents will therefore need to be prepared to meet these needs. It is an internationallydocumented fact that foster parents have a need for training and support to meet thedemands of foster care, and having an AIDS orphan as a foster child will increase, andfocus this need. The study was also motivated by the current shortages and challengesin the foster care system in South Africa which makes it difficult for social workers toeffectively train and support foster parents, and aims to contribute towards overcomingsome of these problems so that foster parents can be properly prepared to see to thewell-being of the AIDS orphans in their care.The research was done based on a literature study, which firstly made use of theEcological Systems Perspective to explore the effects of parental death by AIDS on theirchildren. Subsequently an overview of foster care within the South African context isgiven, with emphasis on foster care in general, foster care within the challenging SouthAfrican context and foster care of AIDS orphans. The last part of the literature reviewdiscusses foster parent cell groups as a means of training and supporting the fosterparents of AIDS orphans for the parenting process.The empirical investigation of the study investigated to what extent, and in what ways,social workers are training and supporting foster parents to care for AIDS orphans. Thisinvestigation confirmed some of the findings of the literature study, namely that AIDSorphans have needs that differ from those of other foster children and that social workersare too overburdened to be able to give the foster parents of these orphans the neededtraining and support. In light of the findings derived from the literature study and empirical research,conclusions and recommendations are made concerning the phenomena underinvestigation. The recommendations focus on guidelines that can be used by socialworkers to train and support the foster parents of AIDS orphans. The recommendationscentre on the utilisation of resource-friendly methods to train and support foster parents;bringing structure into the foster care process and on social workers having to useresearch for guidance.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University