This thesis is an exploratory examination of the role of horticultural therapy with institutionalized older people. Chapter one considers the demographic trends which are taking place in Canada with respect to the aging population. The need for service provision is discussed from a social work perspective. The traditional medical and custodial models of care in institutions are critiqued and the psychosocial model, which incorporates a consideration of 'higher' needs such as quality of life and attainment of meaning, is presented as an alternative. Chapter two provides an introduction to horticulture as therapy and includes a literature review and comprehensive history of this therapeutic modality. The theoretical principles of horticultural therapy are explored, with special emphasis on its application with older people in long-term care. Chapter three presents the methodology for field research which involved phenomenological qualitative interviews with nine older people who were living in institutions. Chapter four introduces the research findings. Analysis of the narratives of these participants found that horticultural therapy offers significant benefits, including increased quality of life. Chapter five concludes with proposals for further research and social work practice implications.

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Text in Afrikaans / A significant percentage of adolescents in children's homes are depressive in consequence of multiple experiences of loss. There is a possibility that experiences of depression are maintained in a systems context. Group therapy using an ecosystemic approach was embarked upon in order to study and to alter within a systems context the phenomenon of depression, the accompanying negative experiential and meaning-assignment worlds of the depressive adolescent girl in a children's home and the interactional behavioural patterns. It was hypothesised that behavioural change brought about in the group therapy context would extend to systems beyond the therapy system. A group of five adolescent girls in a children's home, of whom two were severely depressive, were taken for eight group therapy sessions. The principles of ecosystemic epistemology as a paradigm for family therapy were applied in the sessions. These principles stress inter alia the use of metaphor. Circular questioning was employed in order to explore the relationships within the group. Moments of depression were observed and recorded directly and indirectly according to both linear and circular approaches, and the therapeutic process was described. The manner in which the therapeutic group changed metaphorically by the group itself. A decrease in girls' level of depression was observed during therapy. Their cognitive, affective and normative functioning also changed, and alterations affecting relationships, self-concept and self-realisation could be perceived in the therapeutic process. These changes in relationships and the decrease in the level of depression were confirmed quantitatively. The transfer of these attitudes and relationships to the children's home system was confirmed by interviewing the children's home "parents" of the adolescents involved. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Sielkundige Opvoedkunde)

Children are placed in a children’s home when a Presiding Officer finds them to be in need of care and when there is no viable community placement alternative. The body of literature on children’s homes focuses primarily on the negative effects and outcomes of such statutory placement. The assertion that children who grew up in children’s homes will continue to use the services of welfare organisations in adulthood, is supported by the researcher’s observation as a practicing social worker. This, and the study of available literature, resulted in this qualitative, exploratory-descriptive and contextual research study with the following goal: to enhance the understanding of how intervention programmes at children’s homes can contribute to adult adjustment and independent functioning of those children in their care. A purposive sampling method was used to identify ten participants who had spent at least 2 years in a children’s home and who had been discharged from the children’s home at least 5 years ago (to the date of data collection). The sample was drawn from clients at non governmental social welfare agencies who fitted the sampling criteria. The data was collected via semi-structured interviews using an interview guide, which were recorded, transcribed and then analysed using a thematic content analysis approach. The results of the study may be used to develop and implement meaningful intervention strategies for individuals placed in children’s homes.

M.A. (Social Work) / The purpose of this study was to provide a parent education course specially tailored to the needs of the houseparent in a childrens home. The course is intended for utilization as part of the normal in-service training programmes of resident staff. Existing materials from a large number of sources were assembled and reintegrated into a course suitable for this purpose. The focal point of the course is improvement of the relationship between houseparent and child with a view to enabling the child to utilize opportunities for growth towards a positive self-concept, responsibility, self-reliance and self-confidence. The subjects covered in the course are as follows: motivation for in-service training of resident staff knowledge of the self and self-awareness statutory procedures which precede placement in a childrens home maternal deprivation and its effect on the child in residential care developmental theory a theory of behaviour and misbehaviour factors in the family situation.

M.A. / This exploratory study drew primarily upon narrative interviews and projective tests and secondarily on collateral information taken from case files from a small sample of adolescents who were institutionalised as a result of neglect and abuse. The aim of this study was to explore and develop a better understanding of the nature of attachment patterns of institutionalised adolescents by looking at how attachment abuse, maternal deprivation and institutionalisation can be detrimental to forming close relationships. The data from the clinical interviews, the Sentence Completion Test and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) were subjected to a thematic content analytical process. The Kinetic Family Drawing Test (KFD) was analysed using Kaplan and Main’s classification system for children’s family drawings. The Draw-a-Person Test (DAP) was analysed qualitatively, using various literature on interpreting human figure drawings but largely drawing on Machover’s interpretive system. No quantitative analyses were used in this study. The results yielded a wide range of themes related to the attachment patterns of children in children’s homes. The results of the study clearly highlighted the attachment needs of adolescents. The overall themes present in the tests are of rejection, abandonment, isolation and deprivation. The results indicated that older children who have been separated from their caregivers and placed in a children’s home because they were abused, neglected or maternally deprived, tend to be insecurely attached. The literature highlights the importance of adequate caregiving that is necessary for the child to develop a healthy sense of self and the implications if this is absent.

The social welfare services of the western nations are administered in almost all cases through a combination of voluntary and statutory organizations. The patterns of the relationships subsisting between these two kinds of welfare agency exhibit wide variations from one country to another, and between one area of service and another within the same country. Although there is an extensive literature on the subject purporting to state the nature and scope of the roles peculiarly suited to each of the two kinds of agency, it is not in fact apparent either that the claims of attributions on which this literature rests are valid or that the activities of the agencies themselves conform in a regular way to the model. The present study deals with one area of welfare services in one jurisdiction, namely child welfare service in England and Wales at the present time. It attempts to determine what the character of the relationship between private and public organizations in the field of child welfare is, to evaluate the relative advantages and disadvantages of that relationship, and to offer a number of hypotheses designed to explain the idiosyncrasies of the relationship. It is conceived as one of a number of projected studies, all of which are to be concerned with assessing the plausibility of conventional accounts of the public-private relationship, with the identification of the principal causes of the relationships that are actually observable, and with contributing to the development of a theory of the matter which would assist in the formulation of realistic, efficient and logically consistent methods of organizing and administering social welfare services. The main findings of the study are that: (1) marked differences in the relations between private and public welfare agencies exist even between the constituent parts of a single area of service, — in this case, between delinquency, adoption, protection and recreational services within the single area of child welfare; (2) these differences seem as often as not to be the result of historical accident rather than of principled adherence to a coherent view of what the private-public relationship ought to be; (3) the problem of explaining the sources of the historical accidents in question does not appear to be amenable to any general mode of explanation in the present state of our knowledge of the subject; (4) gross inefficiencies in the administration of child welfare services are a common consequence of unwillingness or inability to come to terms with the problems arising from the co-existence of private and public organizations. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

This study is part of a survey of all wards of the Children's Aid Society of Vancouver, B.C. who were not in foster homes in 1954. Those in Agency group homes or subsidized boarding homes comprised a group of thirty-nine children, eighteen girls and twenty-one boys, ranging in age from one month to fifteen years. The purpose of the study was to determine some of the reasons for this type of care for children, since the Children's Protection Act requires children be placed in foster homes and puts limitations upon any other type of care. The case records of these children were examined to determine whether or not this type of care was meeting their needs. Further, it examined the existing resources in Vancouver for child care to see if they were adequate to meet the needs of all children in care. From the records for each child certain material has been summarized (appendix) and developed for descriptive use in the text. A detailed summary of case records of four of the children is also used to point out areas that need special attention in any child welfare programme. Many factors in the lives of these children appear to have contributed to a special placement other than foster homes. Each child has come from a home that does not constitute a stable family unit. Many had several foster home placements. The majority came into care before the age of seven years. Group homes are meeting the needs of some, but not all such children. In particular, the needs of disturbed children are not being met as adequately in group homes. The needs of babies do not seem to be best served in subsidized boarding homes which in effect are institutions. In general, there is evidence that community services are not adequate to meet the needs of all children in care in Vancouver. The recommendations include the provision of additional services to meet the needs of children as well as further co-ordination and co-operation between existing resources so that together they may offer better service to children. Additional trained staff are needed. And, finally, the study reinforces the need for further research into child dependency. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

M.A. (Social Work) / This study was based on qualitative research methodology and was basically exploratory, seeing as though it was aimed at the gathering of knowledge and insight. The study can also be defined as a self-initiated research as a result of the researcher's interest in the phenomenon of homelessness. As a result of the extensiveness of the problem, the study was limited to the homeless that stay in care centres in the Genniston area, of which there were four, during April 1994, when the study was undertaken. A thorough literal study was conducted, which brought to light that other countries, especially America, have already undertaken various studies to research the phenomenon of homelessness. The cross-sectional survey was chosen as the research design, which also generated hypotheses. Interview schedules were used in the collection of data and respondents were selected through systematic sampling from the target group which consisted of the total number of inhabitants of the four care centres.

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