The Department of Social Development has made good progress in finalizing children's court enquiries and placing children officially in formal foster care with relatives. This has major implications for accessing social support in the form of foster care grants and is aimed at reducing the burden of poverty. However, there are challenges in terms of follow-up and professional foster care supervision to meet the goals or vision of the Department. Supervision of placements is not done and it is not known how placements are progressing after Children's Court enquiries. Foster parents are referred to South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) for foster grant processing and no further contact is made with the clients unless there is a problem with the foster care grant. The foster family is seen after two years when it is time for review of care placement of the child. We do not provide support to kinship carers or close supervision to children in kinship care. The overall aim of the research was: • To investigate the physical and material circumstances of the families. • To explore the psycho-social needs of the children. • To explore the physical and emotional problems of the kinship carers • To identify support systems available to kinship carers. This research provides a comprehensive description of the living circumstances of the children and the families. This will enable social workers at the Department of Social Development to develop tailor made community and group work programmes to address specific areas of concern and so improve social service delivery to children and their caregivers. It has also provided a baseline for further studies which may be pursued to establish whether the type of care has improved. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

This study described kinship care placement in the Nseleni area. The study aims to describe the type of care in kinship foster care placements in the Nseleni area, Richards Bay. The objectives of the study were to investigate the physical and material circumstances of the families, to explore the psycho-social needs of the children, to explore whether or not the kinship carer is experiencing physical and emotional problems and to identify support systems available to kinship carers. The study was guided by the ecosystems perspective. This perspective attempts to appreciate and understand people in their environment. The ecosystems perspective was pertinent in this study as it provided a framework for understanding the individual, family, community and society context in which kinship carers operate. A quantitative descriptive (survey) approach guided this study. This design is useful for describing the characteristics of a large population and therefore it was an appropriate design for this study which aimed at describing how children in kinship care are being cared for. The sample comprised of 30 kinship carers who were respondents. Probability sampling was used to ensure representativeness and that all the members of the identified population had an equal chance of being selected. Structured interview questionnaires were personally administered to the respondents. Data was analyzed manually. Each of the questions was recorded in the manual table for data entry. All variables were added and checked. The totals were converted into percentages for easy calculation and analysis. Using Microsoft excel, tables and figures were formulated. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.