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Introduction. Orphans are the special group of children who are generally deprived and prone to develop psychiatric disorders even those reared in well-run institutions. These children and adolescents living as orphans or in stigmatized environments are vulnerable because of the loss of parent figures. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has contributed to a drastic increase in the number of orphans and vulnerable children and other causes in sub-Saharan Africa. However, little is known about the prevalence of depression and associated factors among orphanage children in areas such as…
Abstract
This interpretive study examines the experiences of 54 Ethiopian emerging adults who had aged out of institutional care facilities. Findings are derived from interviews and focus groups in which questions and activities focused on the challenges faced by participants and the supports they relied on throughout the transition process. These young adults reported facing many challenges upon leaving care, including difficulty finding gainful and interesting employment, a lack of many basic life skills, difficulty finding a support network, and significant stigma in…
Abstract
This interpretive study examines the experiences of 54 Ethiopian emerging adults who had aged out of institutional care facilities. Findings are derived from interviews and focus groups in which questions and activities focused on the challenges faced by participants and the supports they relied on throughout the transition process. These young adults reported facing many challenges upon leaving care, including difficulty finding gainful and interesting employment, a lack of many basic life skills, difficulty finding a support network, and significant stigma in the community due…
This video features a segment of a talk on the effects of care environments on children, hosted by the Christian Alliance for Orphans. The key speakers featured include Dr. Kathryn Whetten & Dr. Charles Nelson, who discuss the Positive Outcomes for Orphans study (POFO) and the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), respectively.
Dr. Nelson speaks about the institutionalization of children and its impact on the brain development of institutionalized children. Many children in institutions, says Dr. Nelson, experience isolation, a lack of response to distress, a…
Retrak is a faith-based non-governmental organisation working with orphans and vulnerable children in Ethiopia and other countries. Retrak uses the contents of key international legal frameworks such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) to help inform their work with children. Utilising the International Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children as a guiding framework as well as the growing body of evidence showing negative effects of institutional care on children’s development…
Global policy makers are advocating that institution-living orphans and abandoned children (OAC) be moved as quickly as possible to a residential family setting and that institutional care be used as a last resort. This analysis tests the hypothesis that institutional care for OAC aged 6–12 is associated with worse health and wellbeing than community residential care using conservative two-tail tests. The five countries (Cambodia, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, and Tanzania) selected were culturally, historically, ethnically, religiously,…
Abstract:
In this meta-analysis of 75 studies on more than 3,888 children in 19 different countries, the intellectual development of children living in children's homes (orphanages) was compared with that of children living with their (foster) families. Children growing up in children's homes showed lower IQ's than did children growing up in a family (trimmed d = 0.74). The age at placement in the children's home, the age of the child at the time of assessment, and the developmental level of the country of residence were associated with the size of the delays. Children growing up in…
In this TED Talk, poet and playwright Lemn Sissay tells his story of growing up in foster care in the UK. His mother had immigrated to the UK from Ethiopia in the late 1960s and became pregnant. At the time, Sissay says, unmarried women who became pregnant were treated as a threat to the community, were separated from their families, and put into mother and baby homes where adoptive parents would be lined up right away. Mothers, at their most vulnerable moments, would be convinced to sign adoption papers releasing their children to the state and the babies would be given up for…
Factors underlying the vulnerability of children and lack of appropriate parental care include HIV and AIDS, natural disasters, internal migration, and chronic poverty. These factors have been documented as the main reasons children lack parental care on a global level and, more specifically, on the African continent. The same paradigm may be applied to the situation in Ethiopia. With approximately five million orphaned and vulnerable children, the need for alternative care options for vulnerable children is growing. The increase in the number of children requiring…
This paper, which was presented at a workshop organized by the Network for Orphaned and Vulnerable Children, discusses the experience of Jerusalem Association Children’s Homes (JACH) on de-institutionalization. This paper also discusses the process of reunification and reintegration through various strategies and activities designed and implemented by JACH.
Having accumulated experience and expertise, JACH has gradually decreased the number of children in the institutions and has made a strategic shift to community-based childcare projects. JACH has initiated such projects in…