“It empowers to attend.” Understanding how participants in the Eastern Cape of South Africa experienced a parent support programme: A qualitative study

“It empowers to attend.” Understanding how participants in the Eastern Cape of South Africa experienced a parent support programme: A qualitative study

AUTHOR(S)
Jenny Doubt; Heidi Loening-Voysey; Lucie Cluver; Jasmina Byrne; Yulia Shenderovich; Divane Nzima; Barnaby King; Sally Medley; Janina Steinert; Olivia O'Malley

Published: 2018 Innocenti Working Papers
Parenting interventions can dramatically reduce violence against children and improve a child’s future. Yet in the past, research has mainly focused on young children in high-income countries, and most of the research has only used quantitative methodology. By contrast, this qualitative study focuses on teenagers and their caregivers who attended a parenting programme in South Africa, contributing to a small but growing body of research on parent support programmes for teenagers in low and middle-income countries. The research examines the Sinovuyo Teen Parenting programme, which was developed and tested between 2012 and 2016 in South Africa. The main qualitative study was carried out in the last year (2015–2016) and is the focus of this paper. It complements a cluster randomized controlled trial. This qualitative study captures the experiences of teenagers and parents who attended the Sinovuyo Teen Parenting programme in 2015. Importantly, the study gives an insight into how the caregivers and teenagers changed as a result of participating in the study. Findings show that both caregivers and teenagers valued the programme and their participation fostered better family relations and reduced violence at home. Their views are important for practitioners, programme implementers and researchers working in violence prevention and child and family welfare. More research is needed, however, to show whether these changes can be sustained.
Literature Review on Qualitative Methods and Standards for Engaging and Studying Independent Children in the Developing World

Literature Review on Qualitative Methods and Standards for Engaging and Studying Independent Children in the Developing World

AUTHOR(S)
Stuart C. Aitken; Thomas Herman

Published: 2009 Innocenti Working Papers
This paper identifies and evaluates qualitative methods appropriate for use in conducting policy-relevant research on the experiences, motivations, agency and life histories of autonomous and semi-autonomous children and adolescents, including those who migrate independently of parents and adult guardians. First, the paper presents an overview of qualitative research practice and its potential to extend and deepen knowledge of children’s varied and independently negotiated life circumstances. It is argued that qualitative approaches are necessary to understand and meaningfully respond to the experiences of diverse physical, social and cultural environments. The second, longer section of the paper presents illustrative examples of qualitative research techniques. An illustrated inventory of research tools is presented with seven categories: surveys; interviews and focus groups; observation and participant observation; life histories and biographical methods; visual and textual methods; performance, play and arts-based methods; and virtual and computer-aided methods. The concluding section synthesizes the information presented and provides guidance on how to incorporate qualitative methods, and qualitative methodologies, into research on children who live independently of parents and adult guardians or who exercise autonomy in more limited contexts.
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