Social Work / D.Phil. (Social Work)

This study was interested in exploring the perceptions and experiences of social workers about the nature and contents of conducting risk assessments with child offenders. Considering the high level of crime and reoffending in South Africa, effective assessment is imperative. The goal of the research was to develop an in-depth understanding of how risk assessments of child offenders are conducted in practice. This was done by applying a qualitative research methodology. The study was conducted in the Western Cape. Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews. Purposive sampling was employed and data were analysed according to the framework provided by Tesch. The findings indicated that although prescribed instruments are used in the risk assessment of children in South Africa, they all have definite limitations. To enhance the quality of service rendered to child offenders, the development of a standardised risk assessment instrument is needed. / Social Work / M. A. (Social Work)

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study shows how child and youth care professionals understand and apply activity-oriented interventions with children aged 6 to 11. Thirteen child and youth care professionals who employ activity-oriented interventions with children participated in semi-structured interviews. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using an inductive content analysis approach. Eighteen emergent themes describe the participants’ perceptions of how activity-oriented interventions engage children, build therapeutic relationships and aid children’s learning. The findings in this study show how activity-oriented interventions fit with children’s development and are seen to be helpful in facilitating self-awareness and promoting change. Further, the findings highlight the lack of activity-oriented core training in Canadian undergraduate and graduate child and youth care programs. These finding suggest that there is a need for increased core curriculum in activity-oriented approaches, and also for future research in the effectiveness of activity-oriented interventions. / Graduate

Social Work / D.Phil. (Social Work)

This study aimed to explore and describe the role perceptions of social workers working with children who have been sentenced to compulsory residence due to being in conflict with the law. Exploratory, descriptive, and contextual research designs were applied in using a qualitative research approach. The researcher collected the data using semi-structured interviews with all the social workers working with children sentenced to compulsory residence at Bosasa Child & Youth Care Centres. The data analysis was done using the eight steps identified by Tesch (in Creswell, 2014:198). The data verification was accomplished using Guba’s model (in Krefting, 1990:214-220). The research study provided valuable conclusions and recommendations to different role-players who have an interest in the role of social workers working with children sentenced to compulsory residence. The findings indicated the importance of regular training for social workers who work with children sentenced to compulsory residence to help children to deal with risk factors that may increase the probability of offences occurring. / Social Work / M.A. (Social Science, Social Work)

Many young persons live under difficult circumstances. Factors including HIV/AIDS pandemic, exacerbate the need to place young persons into alternative placements. The new and the unknown can be frightening but carrying a faithful transitional object establishes therapeutic bridge between the old and known and the new and unknown. This study sought to explore South African child and youth care workers' awareness of young persons' objects of significance in residential care settings. The rational was that with greater awareness, important objects may become a more useful option for the promotion of young persons' well-being. The research confirmed that South African child and youth care workers are aware of the existence and importance of significant objects. It further revealed that young persons possess different objects of significance to which workers need to pay careful attention. / Research Institute for Theology and Religion / M.Tech. (Child and Youth Care)

This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of adolescents living with vertically acquired HIV receiving treatment, care and support services at Dora Nginza Wellness clinic, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Six adolescents living with vertically acquired HIV (four females and two males) between the ages of 16-17 years participated in in-depth semi-structured open-ended individual interviews. Tesch’s (1990) method of data analysis for qualitative research was used to analyse the interviews. Adolescents that participated in the study spoke widely about the outlook on their illness and their lives both in the past and present. They depicted fear, anxiety, pain and sadness in their lived experiences. They were anxious about their own death and had experienced illness and death of parents, siblings and close relatives due to HIV and AIDS. They described painful and traumatic life events related to their illness which included knowing their own HIV status and severe health problems and hospitalisations. They all learnt about their HIV status in early adolescence and choose not to disclose their status to people outside the family due to fear of rejection, stigma and discrimination. Taking ARVs was challenging to the participants due to side effects and strict medication schedules. Their school attendance and performance was affected by their illness. Family was an important resource of support. The participants had good experiences of HIV treatment at the Wellness clinic. The findings suggest that adolescents living with vertically acquired HIV faced a number of challenges in dealing with their disease and its treatment. They need intensive care and support services that enhance their positive self, facilitate self-disclosure and decrease and discourage stigma and discrimination at school and within their communities. / Health Studies / M.A. (Social Behavioural Studies in HIV/AIDS)

This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of adolescents living with vertically acquired HIV receiving treatment, care and support services at Dora Nginza Wellness clinic, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Six adolescents living with vertically acquired HIV (four females and two males) between the ages of 16-17 years participated in in-depth semi-structured open-ended individual interviews. Tesch’s (1990) method of data analysis for qualitative research was used to analyse the interviews. Adolescents that participated in the study spoke widely about the outlook on their illness and their lives both in the past and present. They depicted fear, anxiety, pain and sadness in their lived experiences. They were anxious about their own death and had experienced illness and death of parents, siblings and close relatives due to HIV and AIDS. They described painful and traumatic life events related to their illness which included knowing their own HIV status and severe health problems and hospitalisations. They all learnt about their HIV status in early adolescence and choose not to disclose their status to people outside the family due to fear of rejection, stigma and discrimination. Taking ARVs was challenging to the participants due to side effects and strict medication schedules. Their school attendance and performance was affected by their illness. Family was an important resource of support. The participants had good experiences of HIV treatment at the Wellness clinic. The findings suggest that adolescents living with vertically acquired HIV faced a number of challenges in dealing with their disease and its treatment. They need intensive care and support services that enhance their positive self, facilitate self-disclosure and decrease and discourage stigma and discrimination at school and within their communities. / Health Studies / M.A. (Social Behavioural Studies in HIV/AIDS)

This study explores how heavily tattooed women with a history of childhood sexual abuse give meaning to their tattooing practices in view of the recent appropriation of tattooing by the mainstream. Embodied feminist poststructuralist theory revealed the ways that dominant discourses on gender, beauty, painful body modifications, and childhood sexual abuse intersect and interact in attempts to shape the identities of the participants. These intersections also reveal the participants’ resistance strategies and the process of identity transformation they engage in as they get tattoos. The constitution of identities through discourses offers alternative ways of seeing this population, challenging dominant discourses regarding female survivors of childhood sexual abuse tattooing practices. The research methodology used was a qualitative approach based on ‘interpretive interactionism.’ This approach makes visible and accessible to the reader, the problematic lived experiences of the participants through their narratives. The research methods involved several in-depth interviews with three heavily tattooed women who were survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The analysis involved interpreting the meanings participants gave to their tattooing practices in relation to how they construct their identities as they negotiate gender ideology, the tattoo renaissance, self-injury practices as related to tattooing, healing from childhood sexual abuse and oppressive beauty ideals. This study unearthed alternative ways of conceptualizing painful practices, female aesthetics, tattooing, women’s body reclamation projects, emotional trauma release, embodied domination, and bodily learning. It also offered insights into how the participants fragment their subjectivities and actively take over the authorship of their identities as they also try to positively influence their environments, challenge beauty norms and seek healing outside of traditional therapeutic environments.

Many young persons live under difficult circumstances. Factors including HIV/AIDS pandemic, exacerbate the need to place young persons into alternative placements. The new and the unknown can be frightening but carrying a faithful transitional object establishes therapeutic bridge between the old and known and the new and unknown. This study sought to explore South African child and youth care workers' awareness of young persons' objects of significance in residential care settings. The rational was that with greater awareness, important objects may become a more useful option for the promotion of young persons' well-being. The research confirmed that South African child and youth care workers are aware of the existence and importance of significant objects. It further revealed that young persons possess different objects of significance to which workers need to pay careful attention. / Research Institute for Theology and Religion / M.Tech. (Child and Youth Care)