Working title | Handbook of generation Covid. Global Perspectives on Development with Implications for social work, policy and practice. Cambridge University Press | Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology
Subject Area: Developmental Psychology | Series Editor: Nancy Eisenberg | New Product Proposal
Chapter 8. Promoting Father Inclusion in Caring for Former Street-Involved Children in a Resilience Building Family Reunification Project During the Pandemic in Zimbabwe | Samson Mhizha & Blessing N. Marandure
Globally, a disquieting and escalating number of children live on the streets. These “street-involved children” are a public health and human rights concern due to their exclusion from many resources that support positive development and their vulnerability to exploitation and violence. While the Coronavirus 2019 pandemic increased the risks of violence and marginalisation of children globally, it had unparalleled effects on children living and working on the streets. The pandemic has had disproportionate economic consequences on the lives of street-involved children in Africa, particularly in Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe, the predominantly male population of street-involved children would have been driven to the streets by factors associated with the father's absence. At the same time, Covid-19 worsened the economic and social conditions among vulnerable families. This chapter explores how the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to street childhood and how father-inclusive programming can reunify children with their families. Rich qualitative data were collected during interviews with a purposive sample of 10 current and reunified former street children and eight key informants (former street-involved children, their parents and guardians, education officials, and social workers). Thematic analysis identified diverse father-absence-related factors such as poverty, stepparenting, abuse and neglect, delinquency, and search for relatives. The Covid-19 pandemic worsened the experiences of these children. Family reunification that was father-inclusive included the provision of schooling opportunities, counselling for both the children and their fathers or male guardians, drug rehabilitation initiatives, formal and informal vocational training, foster and kinship care programs, reconnection with their fathers or male guardians and income generating projects were provided. These findings informed the design of education-based family reunification to foster kinship care models for street-involved children.
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