The experiences of early childhood development home visitors in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa

South African Journal of Childhood Education

 
 
Field Value
 
Title The experiences of early childhood development home visitors in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa
 
Creator Azzi-Lessing, Lenette Schmidt, Kim
 
Subject Early Childhood Development; Social Work; Home visiting programmes home-visiting programmes; early childhood development; social work; vulnerable young children; poverty
Description Background: This article examines the development of early childhood development (ECD) home-visiting services in South Africa.Aim: To examine the factors that could support the success of home-visiting programmes as well as to explore the experiences of bachelor’s-level home visitors rendering such services.Setting: This study was conducted in the Eastern Cape, a highly impoverished area of South Africa.Methods: It begins with a discussion of the emergence of home-visiting as a strategy for the delivery of ECD services in South Africa and a review of the literature on ECD home-visiting, particularly with highly vulnerable, impoverished families. Next a focus group conducted with a small sample of home visitors as part of a multi-faceted community assessment is described. The results are examined within the context of challenges facing this particular part of South Africa and the nation as a whole.Results: Four themes emerged as most prominent: (1) encountering the effects of extreme family poverty, (2) identifying high rates and multiple aspects of child maltreatment, (3) encountering scarce resources in high-need areas and (4) finding rewards and maintaining a desire to continue serving challenging populations.Conclusion: This study provides a unique window on the challenges that ECD home visitors are likely to encounter when working with families living in extreme poverty, the resourcefulness that home visitors often demonstrate and the rewards to be found in this work.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor UFH Early Childhood Centre of Excellence – Dr Namhla Sotuku (Director), Mr Sive Makeleni and the late Mrs Nokulunga Sali Wheelock College* – Dr Azzi-Lessing South Africa Partners Loaves and Fishes The ELMA Philanthropies UFH GMDRC
Date 2019-10-14
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Qualitative focus group
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajce.v9i1.748
 
Source South African Journal of Childhood Education; Vol 9, No 1 (2019); 12 pages 2223-7682 2223-7674
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajce.co.za/index.php/sajce/article/view/748/1263 https://sajce.co.za/index.php/sajce/article/view/748/1262 https://sajce.co.za/index.php/sajce/article/view/748/1264 https://sajce.co.za/index.php/sajce/article/view/748/1252
 
Coverage South Africa — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2019 Lenette Azzi-Lessing, Kim Schmidt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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