Speaker

Dr Mandi MacDonald
Senior Lecturer in Social Work
Queens University Belfast, United Kingdom

Youth Mentoring: supporting the journey toward economic inclusion for South African care-leavers

Abstract Narrative

Conference paper abstract:
The transition into adulthood is particularly challenging for youth moving from out-of-home placements, i.e. ‘care-leavers’. In South Africa, young people in out-of-home care typically have fractured family relationships, are placed outside their home communities, and do not have the social support they need to help them negotiate the challenges of adult life. The absence of strong social networks contributes to continued poverty and disadvantage, meaning that the disparities in opportunity and income prevalent among South African youth are sharply focused in the lives of care leavers. South Africa has a goal to interrupt the intergenerational transmission of poverty and promote inclusion for socially marginalised young people. Mentoring seems ideally placed to contribute to achieving those goals, however, most of the evaluative research is located in the Global North.

This paper reports on a qualitative evaluation of the Transition to Independent Living (TIL) formal mentoring programme offered by SAYes, a Non-Governmental-Organisation, to young people living in and leaving out-of-home care in Cape Town, South Africa. Taking TIL as a case study, the project explored the potential of mentoring for addressing development goals of improved wellbeing through social inclusion and promoting equitable access to economic opportunities for marginalised care leavers.

The TIL mentors are trained volunteers who offer one-to-one support through paired sessions for one hour per week over nine months. The programme aims to combat inequality by helping mentees to earn a living, develop healthy relationships, and become engaged with their communities.

The evaluation involved collaboration between Queen’s University Belfast, UK and the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town. Researchers from both universities conducted semi-structured interviews with 35 young people involved with the TIL programme who were living in or recently exited from care; semi-structured interviews with 8 care staff; and two focus groups with mentors. During the study, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, SAYes moved from in-person to online sessions. A further wave of interviews ascertained the benefits and challenges of e-mentoring as a mode of programme delivery. Nvivo software facilitated collaborative thematic data analysis and allowed the two universities to develop, collectively, a conceptual account from the data.

Findings indicate that mentoring provided young people with: access to information about the labour market; guidance with applications for courses and jobs; relationships in which to develop self-efficacy and social skills; encouragement to connect with their talents and interests; motivation to persist toward attaining their goals; and a sense of hope about their potential future selves likely to sustain their educational and work-seeking efforts.

We concluded that while access to opportunity is constrained by structural conditions, mentoring can enable care leavers to identify and maximise the educational and employment chances that are available to them, but they need to be motivated to do so. We will discuss how these findings relate to ecological resilience for care leavers (van Breda, 2018) and align with a youth development approach to employability that emphasises the youth agency (Graham et al, 2019).

Biography

Dr Mandi MacDonald is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Queens University Belfast. She has extensive experience as a social worker in statutory child welfare services: supporting families, safeguarding children and working in the field of permanence and adoption. Her main teaching and research interests are in relation to the needs and rights of children and young people who are in alternative care or adopted, in particular in the experience of family life in permanent placements. She has carried out research on post-adoption contact, adoptive parenthood, kinship foster care and mentoring for care experienced youth. She is also interested in the experience of parenthood in these diverse expressions of family, and in the provision of family support to enhance parenting when children are in need of support or protection

Mr George Rafael
Student
CSU

Youth return to employment post workplace bullying experiences: An innovative approach

Abstract Narrative

This article aims to discuss the impact of workplace bullying on the young and innovative ways of enabling and empowering them to return to work to lead an independent and self-reliant life. By employing an autoethnographic and single case study method, the first author reflects on his practice experiences of working with a young man impacted by workplace bullying. The analysis is presented in terms of nature and type of workplace bullying experienced by a young man, details of psycho-social and economic impact and assessment, innovative practices to help recover from the impact and return to employment. Drawing from this practice experience, reflection on it and analysis, the article argues that workplace bullying can cause lasting damage to individuals, make them further vulnerable and exclude them from employment. Although counselling and legal remedies are important, they alone are not adequate to help workplace bullying victims recover. Legal and medical systems are often biased towards the institutions and can be daunting to victims, particularly those who are socially-economically disadvantaged. Despite these challenges, an innovative model consisting of well planned social work practice combining onsite workplace mentoring can help young people return to work according to their own gradual pace and make them confident and self-reliant. The evaluation of this practice’s outcomes has implications for training, improved work culture and practices on the part of trade persons, who often employ young people to assist them.

Biography

George Rafael is a Clinical Social Worker with experience over forty years as a psychosocial counsellor. He worked in both government health departments and private in South Australia and Victoria. Currently, he is a candidate for a Doctor of Social Work degree at Charles Sturt University (CSU). The research focuses on the effect of Workplace Bullying on the Victim’s social life. The findings that workplace bullying impacts severely on youth workers more than that on adults. He is interested in social justice and aiming for a reduction or criminalization of this global phenomena.

Mr Muhammad Iqbal Pradipta
Community Development Officer
Pt Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Kamojang

Theme 4C

Mrs Josphine Hapazari
Phd Student
University Of Kwazulu Natal

An Assessment Of The Extent To Which The Lesotho Government: Has Economically Empowered Unemployed Youths And Adults

Abstract Narrative

Economic empowerment is fundamental for combating the overarching challenge of unemployment. In Lesotho, unemployment is particularly endemic in the rural areas. The main objective of the study was the assessment of the extent to which the Lesotho Government has economically empowered unemployed youths and adults in Manonyane rural community. This paper offers insights on the outcome of the Lesotho Government’s attempts to alleviate poverty in rural areas. The study will employ a quantitative approach. Quantitative data will collected from a sample of 120 unemployed youths and adults with the use of a questionnaire and will be analysed using Microsoft Excel 2016. Economic empowerment framework will be utilised to underpin this investigation. The study seeks to unearth the coverage of economic empowerment by the Government in Manonyane rural community as well as the percentage of unemployed youth and adults that have received assistance. Overall, the study seeks to establish Government’s efforts in empowering unemployed youth and adults. The study’s recommendations are envisioned to guide the Lesotho Government and civil society on the impact of previous economic initiatives, inclusive of the measures that ought to be taken in order to monitor the implementation of the economic empowerment programmes in place and to how to add more of such programmes.

Biography

My name is Josphine Hapazari, a Zimbabwean female. I am in my final year at the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa, studying Sociology at PhD level. I am currently a part-time lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social Work at the National University of Lesotho. My research interests relate mostly to vulnerable groups such as rural women and girls, youths, the elderly as well as research on gender-based violence, unemployment, family studies and higher education studies. I have published ten papers in international peer-reviewed journals. I have presented three papers at two local conferences and five papers at four international conferences.

Dr Rainier Masa
Assistant Professor
University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill

Direct and indirect associations of nutritional status and self-efficacy with cognitive and academic abilities in Zambian adolescent girls: A longitudinal examination using structural equation modeling

Abstract Narrative

Objective: Adolescent malnutrition remains a global social and public health issue. Poor nutritional status, defined as being underweight or overweight and obese, has been linked to a wide range of adverse outcomes, including cognitive and academic abilities. Further, prior research has identified self-efficacy and gender norms as predictors of adolescent health and educational outcomes. Although previous studies have reported direct associations, to our knowledge, no study has simultaneously examined direct and indirect effects of nutritional status, self-efficacy, and attitudes towards gender norms with cognitive and academic abilities in adolescent girls. We conducted this study to examine how the relationship between nutritional status and cognitive and academic abilities can be better understood and improved through direct and indirect pathways.

Methods: This study used a longitudinal design with data collected from adolescent girls (N = 4,345) who participated in the Adolescent Girls Empowerment Program (AGEP). AGEP was a social, health, and economic asset-building program for vulnerable adolescent girls aged 10-19 in Zambia aimed at delaying early marriage and sexual activity and preventing unintended pregnancy, HIV, and other sexually transmitted infections. We analyzed data collected at rounds 2 (between July 2014 and January 2015) and 3 (between July 2015 and January 2016). Nutritional status, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward gender norms were measured at round 2, whereas cognitive and academic abilities (literacy, numeracy, and arithmetic) were measured at round 3 or one year later. Analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling.

Results: Fifty-three percent of adolescent girls were underweight, 42% had normal weight, and 5% were considered overweight or obese. Nutritional status (underweight) was directly associated with cognitive and academic abilities. Adolescent girls who were underweight reported significantly lower cognitive (β = -0.436, p = .008), literacy (β = -0.388, p = .018), and arithmetic (β = -0.271, p = .026) scores, compared to adolescent girls who were not underweight. Being underweight was associated with lower self-efficacy (β = -0.139, p = .020). Self-efficacy and attitudes toward gender norms were significantly associated with cognitive and academic abilities. Self-efficacy mediated the association of being underweight with cognitive (β = -0.039, p = .041) and literacy (β = -0.065, p = .028). Our results indicated no significant direct and indirect effects of normal weight or overweight and on self-efficacy and cognitive and academic abilities.

Conclusions: Nutrition and education are determinants of long-term developmental and quality of life outcomes. Adolescent girls who are underweight are further left behind as their low nutritional status and its adverse effect on their self-efficacy, cognition, and academic abilities might place them at higher risk for long-term vulnerabilities and disadvantages. Our study also brings attention to self-efficacy and gender attitudes as often-understudied variables that, alongside nutritional status, are predictive of cognitive and academic abilities. Effective interventions might combine nutrition support with gender-responsive strategies to increase self-efficacy and sensitize the community to gender equity. Thus, cross-sectoral interventions may be useful in decreasing the prevalence of underweight, improving academic outcomes, and building self-efficacy of adolescent girls.

Biography

Ms Forte is a doctoral student at UNC School of Social Work. Her research interests include food and nutrition security and its impact on mental health.

Prof. Gina Chowa
Global Social Development Innovations

Employment transitions

Biography

Dr. Gina Chowa first joined the UNC School of Social Work staff in 2008 as an assistant professor and now serves as a full professor and as Associate Dean for Global Engagement. Dr. Chowa is the founding director of Global Social Development Innovations, which launched in 2017.

Informed by more than two decades of experience and practice, Dr. Chowa conducts research at the intersection of economic security, workforce development, social protection, and financial inclusion and its impact on marginalized individuals in the Global South. She has served as a principal investigator of large-scale, cluster-randomized projects such as Siyakha and YouthSave Ghana Experiment. Additionally, Dr. Chowa piloted GSDI initiatives such as AssetsAfrica in Uganda and an innovative intervention study in Zambia called Chuma na Uchizi, dedicated to improving the health outcomes of individuals living with HIV.

Dr. Chowa’s honors include the prestigious Ruth and Philip Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement (2014), the Wallace Kuralt Early Career Distinguished Professorship (2016), and more recently, the Johnson-Howard-Adair Distinguished Professorship (2020). Her work has been published in various interdisciplinary and social work journals, including Child and Youth Services, Children and Youth Services Review, International Journal of Educational Development, Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Journal of Socio-Economics, and more.

Dr. Chowa also has faculty appointments at the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., and the Centre for Social Development Africa at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.