To accommodate aids orphans and children living with abuse, a 'House of Refuge,' which I call Uthando, was established adjacent to an informal settlement from funds raised by pupils from another private school in the area. A number of pupils from the private (donor) school were trained as peer counsellors and interacted with the pupils at Uthando for at least 18 months providing basic counselling and learning support. Although peer group influence starts later in a child’s life - generally by pre-adolescence - it can be enormously powerful in transmitting culture, values, and norms that influence behaviour. By failing to consider peers in understanding interventions with young people and within communities there is a high probability of implementing interventions that are ineffective. The concept of school support teams is not new but the use of peer support within community projects needed further exploration. The question arose: What are the experiences of peer counsellors within an ongoing community project? In this case study reflective journals and participant observation were used to identify the experiences of the peer counsellors at Uthando. Ten themes emerged from the data obtained in the empirical component of this inquiry. In each case, a definition of each experience was formulated based on the journal entries themselves and on personal observation data. These definitions may not exactly reflect the formal definitions found in other sources but have been carefully formulated to reflect the unique nature of the adolescent peer counsellor’s experiences at Uthando. / Prof. J. Pillay
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:4026 |
| Date | 26 August 2008 |
| Creators | Lautenbach, Maria Magdalena |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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