Browsing by Author "Swart, Heidi"

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    The contribution of volunteers to early intervention services in a community-based child protection programme at a selected non-governmental organisation
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03) Swart, Heidi; Green, Sulina; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Social Work.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Child maltreatment in South Africa is a pervasive social problem. South African child protection services follow the family preservation approach, where services strive to keep the child safely in the home, addressing the causes of the maltreatment while working with the family as active participants. Family preservation services are rendered within a continuum of care, which consists of prevention services, early intervention services, and statutory services. Prevention services are aimed at broader population groups in order to prevent child maltreatment through raising general awareness of the issue and the community resources available to address it. Early intervention services include developmental and therapeutic interventions aimed at specific families who are at risk of statutory intervention because maltreatment has already occurred. Statutory intervention (when a child is placed in foster care, for instance) occurs only once the other two service levels have proved unsuccessful in ensuring the child's safety. The type of service (prevention, early intervention or statutory) rendered is determined by the degree of risk of maltreatment. Much international research has been conducted to identify risk factors associated with child maltreatment by utilising the ecological model. Maltreatment is viewed as a result of risk factors occurring at the micro-, meso- and macro-levels of the ecological model. Thus, the practice assumption is that family preservation services should address risk factors on various ecological levels to prevent maltreatment. Child Welfare South Africa is a child protection agency that implements a family preservation programme named the Isolabantwana project: community-based volunteers render early intervention services to specific families at risk of having their children removed. This project shares several characteristics with established American family preservation programmes but was designed to fit the unique needs of South African communities. The Isolabantwana project is implemented nationally in more than 200 communities. This study was undertaken because there is a lack of research regarding such early intervention services rendered by volunteers in South Africa. The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of the contribution of volunteers to early intervention services in a community-based child protection programme at a selected child welfare organisation. Since this is a relatively new field of study, a qualitative approach and a descriptive and exploratory research design were utilised. This study first presented international research findings of risk factors for child maltreatment from an ecological perspective, and an overview of early intervention services and its function within the continuum of care of the family preservation approach. Guided by this theoretical context, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with fourteen Isolabantwana volunteers who were selected by means of a purposive sampling method. Empirical findings showed that volunteer workload (how many families they worked with at any one time, how often they saw families, the length of visitations as well as overall service duration) was considerably more flexible than workloads of Western family preservation models. This can be viewed as a positive adaptation of a family preservation model that is community-based and addresses problems specific to South African communities. Volunteers dealt with families facing stressors identified in the literature as maltreatment risk factors. Volunteers addressed several of these crucial risk factors. Obstacles to service delivery, such as a lack of referral resources, or an under-utilisation of volunteer potential, were identified. A major part of volunteers' services, is to remove a child from a home (for a maximum of 48 hours) when the child is at high risk of maltreatment. The way in which participants assess risk in order to decide whether or not to remove a child, was explored. It emerged that, although participants for the most part removed a child from a high risk situation where serious physical harm was likely to occur, there were certain circumstances where the child was left in a high risk situations due to mitigating factors. Based on these findings, several recommendations for practice and further research were made.