Second success story

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The Zulu family was referred to the ISIBINDI CYCW by the family’s Community Caregiver, who identified a need for family, child and youth care services.  In her first intervention with the family, the CYCW met Granny.  Granny was not very old, but she had experience much trauma and grief after the loss of her own children, so she was in fact looking very old; she was also very confused, and did not know where to start to pull together her new life with the six grandchildren she was now responsible for: Nokuthula, aged 15, Siyabonga and Andiswa, aged 11, Siphesihle and Sandile, aged 10 and Makhosazane, who was 9. Though the CYCW worker explained the ISIBINDI Project to her and promised she could help her if Granny would agree to working together, in fact initially, Granny was apprehensive and very reluctant to build relationships. But the CYCW had noted that there was a very sick child in the house, the fifteen year old, and so she asked Granny if she needed any support in her care.  Granny agreed, and some of the ice between them was broken – and the CYCW was already moving into her “in the life space” work.As she connected with the child, the child revealed that she was supposed to be taking Antiretroviral (ARV) medication, but that she had not taken this for a very long time, and no one knew that she was not taking it either. It was no wonder that she looked so sick.  The CYCW accompanied the child to the Health Clinic, explained the situation to the HIV/AIDS counselor, CD4 count was done; she also supported the child attendance in the ARV’S class again. Though family members knew that the child was taking ARV’S medication, there was no real family support. So the CYCW organized a family conferencing meeting to discuss the issue of giving the child support with her medication and helping Granny, who was also very busy with the other children. During family conference, she also taught the family about hygiene and taking care of a 15 year old child. One family member was selected to be the support for the child with the administration of medication; the CYCW committed to monitor the medication and reminding the family about collecting the medication on time and keeping doctors’ appointments.  Thus the larger family was engaged to become a part of the support system for Granny and the children. There were other urgent matters to attend to as well. The children had no birth documents and Granny has no idea where to start to apply for Foster care grants. The older children were in  school even though they did not have birth documents.  The 9 year old child Makhosazane was living with a disability and was therefore not in school. The CYCW accompanied Granny to Home Affairs for the children’s birth documents. After the documents were sorted out, she next accompanied Granny to the Department of Social Development to file grant applications. She initiated discussions with Granny about budgeting, nutrition and diet, menus doing food gardening and she registered the family for Momentum food parcels. She advocated to Department of Agriculture for vegetable seeds, and started the food gardening with granny and the children. She turned her attention to the disabled child Makhosazane and learned she had speech impairment, then visited the school to advocate for schooling. The child was admitted to the mainstream school, and now that he was attending school the CYCW advised the class teacher to secure placement at the resource school for the child for next year. She herself engages actively with the child, supporting her learning efforts and drawing pictures with her, and she is now able to communicate with other children using sign language.  The CYCW also did school visits to follow up on the other children she helps them all with school work. The CYCW observed that two ten year old children were grieving the loss of their parents, so she initiated a project to create a memory box with them and the family; she then realized that she needed to design a grief work program for these two children. She had a discussion with Granny and explained the grief work, and she asked Granny’s permission to do the program. The individual and group grief sessions were presented by the CYCW and children were able to talk about the pain they felt about losing their parents, and they contributed well to the group work session. THE CYCW introduced the children in the ISIBINDI Safe Park and as they started to participate in the activities, the children started to build relationships with other young people and making friends and expanding their circles of support. Today, Granny receives the grant to support the family; she saves money for her grand childrenm in a children’s account, and keeps a budget. The family has a beautiful gardening with all kinds of vegetables.  The 15 year old child takes her medication regularly and she is recovering very well. The 9 year old boy with the disability is stimulating himself at Mainstream school and he is already registering for the Resource school for the upcoming year. The children are coping well with their devastating losses after grief work program, and they are now playing in Safe Park activities as children. This special blended family has a future to look forward to and create, and Granny has come back to life.


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