Extended family childcare arrangements in a context of AIDS: collapse or adaptation?
SOURCE: AIDS Care
OUTPUT TYPE: Journal Article
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2009
TITLE AUTHOR(S): V.Mathambo, A.Gibbs
KEYWORDS: CHILD CARE, FAMILY PARTICIPATION, HIV/AIDS, WELL-BEING (HEALTH)
Print: HSRC Library: shelf number 6030
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/4642
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/4642
OUTPUT TYPE: Journal Article
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2009
TITLE AUTHOR(S): V.Mathambo, A.Gibbs
KEYWORDS: CHILD CARE, FAMILY PARTICIPATION, HIV/AIDS, WELL-BEING (HEALTH)
Print: HSRC Library: shelf number 6030
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/4642
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/4642
If you would like to obtain a copy of this Research Output, please contact Hanlie Baudin at researchoutputs@hsrc.ac.za.
Abstract
Families are subjected to a number of social, economic, political and demographic challenges. In recent years, the AIDS epidemic has constituted a major challenge for already poor families due to its wide reaching social, economic and health consequences. The devastating consequence of HIV and AIDS is being seen through the prolonged illness and death of family members of prime working age which impacts on family livelihoods and the ability to provide for and protect its members. This paper forms part of a review commissioned by the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS of qualitative studies of how families in southern Africa have changed, and are changing, as a result of the impact of HIV and AIDS. This paper presents results of how extended family childcare arrangements are changing as a result of the AIDS epidemic. In a southern African context, family denotes a wider array of relations than biological parents and their children with children growing up amongst a multitude of relations sharing responsibility for their care and upbringing (Chirwa, 2002; Verhoef, 2005). Recently, there has been growing interest in the capacity of the extended family to care for the increasing number of children whose parents have died. However, literature on the role of the extended family in caring for orphaned children remains contradictory. One approach the social rupture thesis (Chirwa, 2002) suggests that the extended family network is collapsing under the strain of AIDS. On the other hand, families are portrayed as resilient and dynamic entities which are adapting their systems of childcare in response to the epidemic (Kuo, 2007). In line with Abebe and Aase (2007) and Adams, Cekan, and Sauerborn (1998), this paper proposes a continuum of survival rather than a polarisation of extended family childcare arrangements.-
Related Research Outputs:
- CHAMPioning families to fight AIDS
- Going to scale: family- and school-based support for children affected by HIV/AIDS
- HIV/AIDS and the crisis of care for children
- Editorial: strenghtening families for the care and protection of children affected by HIV and AIDS
- Strengthening families to support children affected by HIV and AIDS
- Investigation of the quality of care of orphans provided by grandparents in semi-rural communities of South Africa
- Introduction: an introduction to family-centred services for children affected by HIV and AIDS
- Social cash transfers to support children and families affected by HIV/AIDS
- Fragile families' experiences of caring for HIV-positive children: selected cases from the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal
- Review of evidence-based interventions to support families and households, and to build capacities of communities to provide long-term care and support to children and households
- Annotated bibliography of evidence-based interventions to support families and households, and to build capacities of communities to provide long-term care and support to children and households
- The development, implementation and evaluation of interventions for the care of orphans and vulnerable children in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe: A literature review of evidence-based interventions for home-based child-centred development
- Health care-seeking behaviour for child illnesses among rural mothers in South Africa: a pilot study
- Defining orphaned and vulnerable children
- Family and community interventions for children affected by AIDS
- Evaluating replacement childcare arrangements: methods for combining economic and child development outcome analyses
- Containment and contagion: how to strengthen families to support youth HIV prevention in South Africa
- Care environments for infants and young children affected by HIV/AIDS: final report
- Meeting the psychosocial needs of children in the context of HIV/AIDS
- Strengthening systems to support children's healthy development in communities affected by HIV/AIDS