Strengthening families to support children affected by HIV and AIDS
SOURCE: AIDS Care
OUTPUT TYPE: Journal Article
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2009
TITLE AUTHOR(S): L.M.Richter, L.Sherr, M.Adato, M.Belsey, U.Chandan, C.Desmond, S.Drimie, M.Hanour-Knipe, V.Hosegood, J.Kimou, S.Madhavan, V.Mathambo, A.Wakhweya
KEYWORDS: CHILDREN, FAMILY PARTICIPATION, HIV/AIDS, WELL-BEING (HEALTH)
Print: HSRC Library: shelf number 5989
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/4683
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/4683
OUTPUT TYPE: Journal Article
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2009
TITLE AUTHOR(S): L.M.Richter, L.Sherr, M.Adato, M.Belsey, U.Chandan, C.Desmond, S.Drimie, M.Hanour-Knipe, V.Hosegood, J.Kimou, S.Madhavan, V.Mathambo, A.Wakhweya
KEYWORDS: CHILDREN, FAMILY PARTICIPATION, HIV/AIDS, WELL-BEING (HEALTH)
Print: HSRC Library: shelf number 5989
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/4683
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/4683
If you would like to obtain a copy of this Research Output, please contact Hanlie Baudin at researchoutputs@hsrc.ac.za.
Abstract
This paper provides an overview of the arguments for the central role of families, defined very broadly, and we emphasise the importance of efforts to strengthen families to support children affected by HIV and AIDS. We draw on work conducted in the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and Aids Learning Group 1: Strengthening Families, as well as published data and empirical literature to provide the rationale for family strengthening. We close with the following recommendations for strengthening families to ameliorate the effects of HIV and AIDS on children. Firstly, a developmental approach to poverty is an essential feature of responses to protect children affected by HIV and AIDS, necessary to safeguard their human capital. For this reason, access to essential services, such as health and education, as well as basic income security, must be at the heart of national strategic approaches. Secondly, we need to ensure that support garnered for children is directed to families. Unless we adopt a family oriented approach, we will not be in a position to interrupt the cycle of infection, provide treatment to all who need it and enable affected individuals to be cared for by those who love and feel responsible for them. Thirdly, income transfers, in a variety of forms, are desperately needed and positively indicated by available research. Basic economic security will relieve the worst distress experienced by families and enable them to continue to invest in the health care and education of their children. Lastly, interventions are needed to support distressed families and prevent knock-on negative outcomes through programmes such as home visiting, and protection and enhancement of children's potential through early child development efforts.-
Related Research Outputs:
- Editorial: strenghtening families for the care and protection of children affected by HIV and AIDS
- Fragile families' experiences of caring for HIV-positive children: selected cases from the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal
- Defining orphaned and vulnerable children
- Family and community interventions for children affected by AIDS
- CHAMPioning families to fight AIDS
- Going to scale: family- and school-based support for children affected by HIV/AIDS
- Social and behavioral aspects of child and adolescent participation in HIV vaccine trials
- A monitoring dilemma: orphans and children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS
- Enhancing resilience in children affected by HIV and AIDS: children's views and experiences of resilience enhancing family and community practices
- Associations with HIV status in children with diarrhoea in Cape Town, South Africa
- Children's perspectives on death and dying in southern Africa in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic
- Impact of HIV/AIDS on children in South Africa: the case of orphans and vulnerable children
- Going to scale: a randomised community trial to determine the cost-effectiveness of alternative interventions to support highly vulnerable children and families in the context of HIV, AIDS and poverty
- No small issue: children and families: universal action now
- We are volunteering: communities' responses to children in need
- Book review: Foster, G., Levi, C., and Williamson, J. (eds.) 2005. A generation at risk: the global impact of HIV/AIDS on orphans and vulnerable children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-652643
- Rifampin pharmacokinetics in children, with and without human immunodefiency virus infection, hospitalized for the management of severe forms of tuberculosis
- Improving hospital care for young children in the context of HIV/AIDS and poverty
- Investigation of the quality of care of orphans provided by grandparents in semi-rural communities of South Africa
- Community perceptions and understanding of the risk factors that affect children who are sexually abused