’n Bindingsprogram vir verwante, enkelouerpleegmoeders en pleegkinders (Afrikaans)

Abstract

The number of children who are placed in foster care with their grandmothers has increased drastically. The main reason for their foster care placement is the death of their mother or both their parents, mostly because of HIV/Aids-related diseases. However, welfare organisations in South Africa do not have a programme at their disposal to strengthen attachment between related single-parent foster mothers and their foster children. An exploratory study was therefore undertaken to develop such a programme. A twofold research approach, namely a positivist-humanistic or quantitative-qualitative approach, was followed to collect the data. The approach would serve the exploratory developmental research the best. The aim of the study was to develop an attachment programme for related, single-parent foster mothers and foster children, and implement and empirically test the programme. A quasi-experimental design, namely a comparative group pretest-posttest, was used to test the programme empirically. A collective case study was also used to observe and describe the respondents’ subjective experiences of the programme. The study was guided by the following research question: What are the experiences of a group of related single-parent foster mothers and foster children during the implementation of the attachment programme? This question was based on the following hypothesis: If the programme is applied, the attachment of the related single-parent foster mothers and foster children will improve. The research question was answered and the hypothesis was confirmed. Altogether 50 mother-child pairs (middle-childhood children and grandmothers older than 50 years) who lived in Daveyton (Gauteng) and were clients of CMR Daveyton during 2004, participated in the research. The sample was divided into two equally large groups: a comparative group and an experimental group. The experimental group was supposed to have done a pretest, the programme and a posttest, but since several respondents withdrew from the research, only 22% (11 mother-child pairs) were subjected to the intervention. The comparative group did the pretest and the posttest only. Rothman and Thomas’s model for intervention research was used to develop the attachment programme. The model is comprised out of six phases of which the first five phases have been used in this study. During the first phase the problem was analysed. During the second phase information (about attachment and foster care) was collected. During the third and fourth phases a theory-based attachment programme was drafted and tested to identify shortcomings. In the fifth phase the programme was fully implemented and its impact tested empirically. The quantitative data were collected with the aid of an existing attachment scale, the Marschak Interaction Method Behavior Rating System (MIMBRS). The MIMBRS was used to code the respondents’ interactions during a structured interactional analysis (the Marschak Interactional Method or MIM). Since the MIM is mainly used among literate people, it was adapted for the purposes of this study for illiterate people. The results of the pretest and posttest demonstrated that the intervention was successful. The respondents who did the programme showed an improvement in all the variables that were measured. Copyright 2005, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Blunden, C 2005, ’n Bindingsprogram vir verwante, enkelouerpleegmoeders en pleegkinders (Afrikaans), DPhil thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-09142005-122907 / >