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South Africa, like many countries, has high numbers of learners who do not complete secondary schooling. This reduces these young people's chances of finding work or of earning a better salary. It is thus important to understand the factors that contribute to high school dropout. In the study reported on here we investigated the factors that caused a number of female learners to drop out and return to high school in a rural community in Mpumalanga. The learners provided 3 reasons for dropping out of school: pregnancy, illness and immigration. The analysis of these factors suggests 3 underlying themes that influence the ability of children to remain in school, viz. health, policies and structures, and poverty. The implications of these and recommendations to address them are discussed. The authors argue that greater interdepartmental efforts are required to support vulnerable girls to remain in school.

Background: This study focuses on young people with intellectual disabilities and/or autism who, due to child welfare concerns, have grown up in children's residential care and are now transitioning out of care at the age of 18 years towards young adulthood. This transition is termed "care leaving" and the young people in transition "care leavers". The care leaving transition can be particularly difficult for young people with intellectual disabilities and/or autism. These challenges can be magnified in a time of a global crisis like COVID-19, which has resulted in countries being on lockdown and care leavers' transitions being curtailed. Many mental health problems have emerged due to the COVID-19 outbreak and resultant lockdown that may negatively impact on the care leaving transition of young people with intellectual disabilities. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six care leavers with intellectual disabilities and their three caregivers in June 2020 in the Cape Peninsula region of South Africa to explore the impact of COVID-19 on their transitional journeys. Findings: Three core themes emerged from the analysis: young people evidenced regression of independence, rather than the expected growth in young adult independence, due to disruptions to routines and opportunities to move out into the world; some young people experienced an exacerbation or emergence of mental health problems, which impacted on their transition to young adulthood; and young people and their caregivers experienced a deepening of caregiver relationships, which enhanced the transition of the care leaver. Conclusions: Services must continue to facilitate progress towards independence and promote personal and caregiver well-being. Support service for care leavers with intellectual disabilities should be essential services, offered in person or online while adhering to COVID-19 regulations. Caregivers should be trained in continuing independent and interdependent living programmes for care leavers in their care, supported through in person or online training, mentoring and supervision. Service continuity is recommended to avoid the contraction of young people's social world at a time when it should be opening up.

Preparing young people who have been removed from their parents for leaving alternative care is vital to their success as young adults. Most research on this preparation centres on care-leavers’ views of their support requirements. However, there is little evidence on how to develop practice guidelines for leaving care that may work in real-world settings. This paper aims to achieve two things. First, it presents a first-hand narrative account of a qualitative, collaborative and emic methodology for developing practice guidelines. The methodology emerged over four years through a collaborative bottom-up process between researchers and practitioners in South Africa. The author argues that this methodology may be helpful in other countries and practice contexts. Second, it presents examples of the resultant care-leaving practice guidelines, structured according to set headings and designed to be practicable in resource-constrained settings. While the practice guidelines, being emic, may not transfer across contexts, the author argues that the development process, the structure of the guidelines and the larger practice matrix may transfer well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is a substantial body of leaving care research, the theorization of care leaving has been more limited. Only a few studies have incorporated a life course perspective, mainly in Global North contexts where life course perspectives may differ significantly from those in the Global South, including Africa. Drawing on findings from a feasibility research study, this paper contributes to the emerging international literature on theorizing care leaving by applying a life course perspective to the experiences of youth leaving care in four African countries. The paper highlights how life course can be a useful conceptual framework for understanding the experiences of care leavers with an emphasis on four core concepts: biography, linked lives, waithood, and agency. Implications for policy and practice are outlined with a focus on interdependence, participatory practice, biography, and cultural transition planning alongside efforts to redress systemic, oppressive barriers facing care leavers in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While supportive relationships are important for probably everyone and while research indicates that supportive relationships contribute towards improved care-leaving outcomes for young people who grew up in care, there is no research that shows their contribution year by year over the first several years out of care. The aim of this study is to fill this gap, drawing on a sample of 100 residential care-leavers in South Africa, who were followed-up annually for as long as seven years. This paper presents quantitative findings from this study, viz. measures of 13 relational resilience resources just before aging out of care and 19 care-leaving outcomes (such as self-supporting accommodation, criminal activity and well-being) collected annually for up to seven years. Findings show that supportive relationships are particularly influential on care-leaving outcomes over the first three years out of care, and that their impact continues to be evident up to seven years. The study also shows the importance of the relational capacity of young people, such as empathy and teamwork. In light of these findings and other longitudinal studies on the contribution of supportive relationships to adult outcomes, a triangle of support is proposed, involving the relational capacity of young people, the availability of supportive others and the role of formal social services. When these three sides of the triangle operate optimally, sustained resilient outcomes are evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth transitioning into university face numerous life challenges, particularly in South Africa with its high levels of poverty and inequality. This article, recognising the vulnerability of many students, sets out to identify the resilience processes that facilitate the resilient outcomes of life satisfaction and academic progress. Using a sample of 232 psychosocially vulnerable undergraduate students, a quantitative survey was conducted and analysed using multivariate procedures. Results indicate that 27% of the variance in life satisfaction was accounted for by 19 resilience variables, with community relationships and family financial security being individually significant, and that 18% of the variance in academic progress was accounted for, with learning orientation being individually significant. Family relationships also emerged as important for both outcomes. The findings suggest that, during times of adversity, South African students draw in particular on relational resources in their home communities, and that academic progress is protected from deterioration by vulnerable students' love for learning. Practice implications for universities are proposed that go beyond reactive, therapeutic services towards creating a supportive academic community.

This article aims to deepen and theorise our understanding of the need for belonging among young people transitioning out of residential care. The study adopted a qualitative approach, with a sample of 31 residential care-leavers in South Africa, who were followed-up annually for seven years. It addresses the lack of theoretically informed studies and builds an indigenous theory to explain the care-leaving journey. This paper presents findings on care-leavers' deep desire for authentic belonging, their investment in building authentic relationships, and their frustration and failure in doing so. Implications for practice suggest an imperative to build careleavers' sense of belonging after removal from home to care, which will ultimately lead to building resilience. Social workers and child and youth care workers need to co-build networks of belonging to foster young people's perceptions of themselves and the part that belonging plays in their post-care reintegration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In South Africa, the field of scale development and utilization in social work is referred to as "ecometrics," that is, the measurement of ecological constructs. There is, however, a lack of ecometric tools for social workers, particularly regarding strengths or resilience. Given the high vulnerability of South African youth, this article describes the design and validation of a youth resilience measure. Method: The Youth Ecological-Resilience Scale (YERS), a multidimensional, summated rating scale that measures youth resilience within an ecological framework, was designed and validated with a diverse sample of 575 young people, using ecometric techniques. Results: The YERS shows good levels of reliability and validity. Conclusions: The YERS is suitable for group administration and research and also for assessment of individuals when triangulated with other assessment methods. Several studies of youth transitions using the YERS are described as well as suggestions for its use in social work practice.

The study aims to describe the perceptions that trauma-exposed older people hold about how Eye Movement Integration therapy (EMI) facilitates their processing of trauma symptoms. Ten older persons participated in a qualitative interview to review their perceptions of the therapy, combined with pre- and post-intervention quantitative checklists of trauma symptoms. The results show improvements in most trauma symptoms for most participants. Older persons perceived EMI as helpful in alleviating trauma symptoms. Further research into EMI is warranted to verify the results of this study, with a view to increasing affordable access to mental health services for trauma among older persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the resilience of young people who were raised by substance-abusing caregivers is limited. This study aims to explore the internal interactional processes between nonhuman systems and young adults raised by alcohol-abusing caregivers in Lesotho. Multiple in-depth interviews were conducted and a draw-and-write technique applied with 15 university students, six of whom described having interacted with diverse nonhuman systems in their environment. A grounded theory analysis generated two themes: (1) interacting with empowering messages from non-present writers (through songs and books) and inspirational speakers (through videos) and (2) interacting with imaginary friends and inanimate objects (dolls and tattoos) in order to enhance their resilience. Van Breda's interactional resilience approach, developed from person-in-the-environment perspective, and Margaret Archer's theory of agency were found to be useful in interpreting the findings. The implications of the study include the need for social workers' greater focus on young people's interactions with nonhuman systems for resilience building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ubuntu is an African concept referring to humanness. It gives expression to deeply-held African ideals of one’s personhood being rooted in one’s interconnectedness with others. Social workers seeking to develop an African framework for decolonial social work practice turn repeatedly to ubuntu for aid. But the term has, for the most part, been limited to the idea of mutual aid – people helping each other in a spirit of solidarity. This article endeavours to extend and deepen the ubuntu concept to strengthen its potential as a theory informing social work practice. This is done by interweaving other African ideas with ubuntu in three domains: ethics, sustainable development and ecospirituality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]