Children's Perspectives on child well-being : a pathway to sustainable futures

Abstract

In an analysis of the General Household Survey 2002-2018 of Statistics South Africa it was found that children make up 34% of the total population in South-Africa. Large numbers of children in South Africa are exposed to adverse childhood experiences, including poverty, abuse, inadequate education, and poor health, amongst others, largely because of inequality, the inability to implement children’s rights, and diversity such as inequality between rich and poor, urban and rural, and between racial groups. The researcher aimed to understand child well-being in order to form a pathway to a sustainable future for children in South Africa. Internationally, child well-being and children’s subjective well-being have been researched extensively in terms of various domains of well-being and well-being in different contexts. Nonetheless, research from children’s own perspective on their well-being is limited. Child well-being has a holistic focus on children’s present physical, emotional, cognitive, social, spiritual and environmental state and has a significant influence on their development and their future. The goal of this study was to explore and describe the perspectives that children in Gauteng have on child well-being. A qualitative research approach and an instrumental case study design was followed to gain a holistic understanding of children’s perspective on well-being. Semi-structured interviews with the use of visual communication cards and an interview schedule were used to collect data from 10 participants living in Gauteng between the ages of 8 and 12 years. The participants were selected by means of purposive sampling as the researcher focused on a specific population (children between the ages of 8 and 12 years). The findings of the study indicate that there are various aspects that needs to be taken into account such as child well-being indicators, individuals necessary for a child to live well and their characteristics, the basic needs of children, access to resources and services and environmental elements. These elements can either enhance a child’s well-being or reduce child well-being. In line with the ecological systems perspective, the influence of different individuals on children’s lives together with access to certain services was a prominent theme in the research findings and need to be kept in mind by social workers that deliver social work services to children. It is recommended that social workers view children holistically in order to understand the different aspects that influence child well-being. Additionally, social workers and other professionals should strive to educate important role players in a child’s life such as parents, teachers, siblings, extended family and friends. The interactions between these role-players and the child can have a major effect on the child’s well-being and it is therefore of utmost importance for these role-players to possess the necessary knowledge to improve child well-being. The researcher further recommends that large scale research studies be conducted on the topic of children’s perspectives on child well-being with larger samples sizes or with children of different age groups.