Why older children are not readily adopted: Perceptions of Social Workers, Social Auxiliary Workers and Child Care-Givers at Johannesburg Children’s Home.
Date
2017
Authors
Mahlangu, Nombulelo
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Abstract
Hundreds of children in need of care and protection are placed in children’s homes. Although many of these children become available for adoption because they cannot be reunified with their parents or members of their extended family, very few are legally adopted. Children have the right to be raised in a permanent family environment. This then leads to the primary aim of the study, which is to explore the perceptions of adults rendering services to this category of children regarding why these children are not readily adopted. The research approach will be qualitative in nature. The research design will be a case study conducted at a Johannesburg Children’s Home. The research sample will consist of approximately nine research participants, including social workers, social auxiliary workers and the care-givers that are working at the Johannesburg Children’s Home. The sampling procedure that will be used is the non-probability, which is purposive sampling. The research instrument will be a semi-structured interview guideline and data will be gathered by conducting in-depth, personal interviews with research participants. Thematic analysis will be the method that will be used for analysing data. This study hopes to make a meaningful contribution to knowledge in the social work field of Child Protection and Adoption.
Key words: Family reunification, adoption, children’s homes, children’s rights.
Description
A report on a study project presented to
The Department of Social Work
School of Human and Community Development
Faculty of Humanities
University of the Witwatersrand
In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Bachelor of Arts in Social
Work