Child-Headed Households in Africa

The challenges of child-headed households, as part of the broader issue of child and family poverty, result from a myriad of adverse events including HIV/AIDS mortality among adults, violent conflict, mal-distribution of resources, lack of social and structural support for families and so forth. While programs and services to address these challenges exist in Southern African countries like Swaziland, they are fragmented; single-problem focused and there lacks a clear understanding of their efficacy. The presentation will provide a brief overview of a study being undertaken to address this challenge in the Kingdom of Swaziland that has a dual focus: a) Expansion of a smaller area (one district) study on the issues conducted by UNICEF/Save-The-Children, to the whole country; and b) engagement in a systematic approach of defining and comparative testing of "service package" or "service clusters" in catchment areas where currently discreet (individual and targeted) services are delivered. Partners understand that working collectively is a challenge and resources are limited, however, pooled resources across NGO and government agencies is a public health solution-building, results-focused model that will produce tangible outcomes. The intervention study is designed to produce social-cultural-technical best practice case examples with replicable outcomes that can serve as a national model (all regions). The two core questions the proposed study will answer are "What model(s) work best? and "What resources are needed to get the job done?"