D.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / Hope builds resiliency and, therefore, as a protective phenomenon has particular relevance to orphans and vulnerable young people who face adversity on a daily basis. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is adding more strain to the already overburdened safety nets of families and communities in South Africa, where the emergence of child-headed households and the rising numbers of vulnerable young people calls for a more comprehensive response to address their needs and to protect their rights. Many are traumatised - suffering abuse or trying to cope with poverty and the pressures of daily living. Hope is unlikely to emerge and be sustained in young people left to fend for themselves. The purpose of this inquiry is to explore the processes of constructing hope in the lived experiences of young people from child-headed households to invite others to join the spaces of conversation in building support for orphans and vulnerable young people - domains that support a discourse of hope. A social constructionist inquiry with a grounded theory research design involving four young people representing the child-headed household was conducted at a secondary school in Soweto in partnership with a non-governmental organisation. Guided by narrative and participatory practices, the data collection process extended over nine months with the participants using the metaphor of a journey. The journey provided an opportunity to work in healing ways as a researcher to thicken stories of hope in their lives, at the same time providing rich data for analysis. The narrative approach seeks to ‘re-author’ problemsaturated stories - stories which are filled with the challenges of orphanhood, abuse, abandonment, poverty and neglect. Methods used included individual and group conversations, expressive art exercises and photo voice to capture their hopeful stories. The co-constructed hopeful stories were then used as data for analysis using a constructionist approach to grounded theory. This in turn helped to develop a conceptual framework to understand the processes of nurturing hope in the lives of orphans and vulnerable young people - based on their own voices. By identifying what helps young people to nurture hope in their lives, support structures that provide opportunities for growth rather than merely helping them to cope, invite us to challenge more conventional understandings of support for vulnerable young people. The v story of our journey provides a broader understanding of the processes of nurturing hope in the context of vulnerable young people. Findings offer an alternative view of hope from generally accepted Western understandings that are essentially individualistic. A 4-D understanding of hope is presented which recognises the importance of hope as a practice and the role of possibilities in empowering young people to transcend adversity in seeking a better future. Recommendations advocate raising standards in the support of vulnerable young people from a preoccupation with ‘coping’ strategies to an awareness of ‘hoping’ schemata – a repositioning that seeks to protect young people; to strengthen them to cope with adversity; to support them to meet their needs and protect their rights; and to find opportunities to transcend their adversities and realise their future aspirations.

The purpose of this research was to examine what the caregivers of raped children experience in the aftermath of child rape disclosure. Nineteen caregivers were drawn from a Treatment Centre, for child rape victims, using purposive sampling. Information was gathered from them by means of focused in-depth interviews that were conducted by a qualified psychologist and the data collected from these interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. According to the findings of this study, caregivers reacted emotionally, physically, and psychologically to rape discovery. What was feared by most caregivers was that their children might have contracted HIV during the rape incident. Most caregivers also complained of the service rendered by the police and considered it to be the worst as compared to that provided by medical staff. When it comes to coping strategies, most caregivers seemed to have been assisted by the Treatment Centre in dealing with rape disclosure. This suggests a need for the development of more such Treatment Centres which are readily accessible by the public. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.