Objetos cotidianos e imágenes del mañana: «This Is Tomorrow»

By asking the question about how they were informed about support groups, the researcher tried to determine the mothers’ knowledge of support groups, attendance of these groups and the benefits they gained from the support groups.

Figure 5.32 displays how mothers have been informed about support groups. Most of them were informed by other professionals (20%) and not the CBR officer.

Bar/Column Plot of Count of yes Spreadsheet9 3v*5c Count of yes 20% 5% 5% 0% 0% Home visit Seminar Workshop Short course Demonstration attend any education activity organised by CBR

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 20% 5% 5% 0% 0%

(N = 20)

Figure 5.32 Informed about support group

The findings show that half (50%) of the mothers knew about the support groups and half (50%) did not know about these groups. Those that knew about the support groups got the information from other professionals not social workers. Only 20 % attended the support groups which were not part of rehabilitation. This shows lack of support services from the CBR programme. The CBR had no support group, which is why the mothers could not say anything about the support groups being useful, or about the benefits of attending them. They cannot benefit from the support group if they are not part of it and not informed about it.

According to Burger (1990), a support group is essential as it makes rehabilitation services accessible to the needy. Mothers can also discuss their problems amongst each other (group counselling), share information about emergency services like Care Line, discuss their rights and empower each other with knowledge about laws, engage in community services, and receive professional guidance.

It is therefore important for the social worker from the CBR programmes to educate, assist and guide the disabled persons and their families about support groups. These

Bar/Column Plot of Count of yes Spreadsheet10 3v*7c Count of yes 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% 0% 0% Other professionals Friend Family member CBR officer Community leader Advert other

informed about support group 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% 0% 0%

support groups will help them to discuss their issues and challenges and how they can overcome them. Only 10 (50%) of the mothers knew about support groups and 10 (50%) knew nothing about them. Of the 10 that knew about the support group four had heard from other professionals like nurses and family welfare educators. The support was related to home based community care and orphans. Three mothers heard about the support group through friends and two from family members, but this was not fully explained. Only one heard from the CBR social worker a few years ago. This shows that the disabled children and their families lack the support of the rehabilitation social workers. This was however not surprising because at the time of the interview there was no rehabilitation social worker at all. She had been transferred two years prior to this study and had not been replaced. The physiotherapist was the one who was trying to perform all the duties and responsibilities of the social worker as well as her own duties. This however is impossible because the physiotherapist spends most of the time at the clinic.

This information indicates that physically disabled school going children have their own special needs that have to be attended to and their mothers have the burden of caring for them with their special needs. In order for the mothers to manage this burden, they need assistance from the rehabilitation social worker with their psychosocial needs. But the role of the social worker is not fulfilled in Letlhakeng at all. The disabled child is the only one attended to through the correction of the disability by the physiotherapist, but the other issues surrounding the families of these children are not attended to. There were two cases which were referred to the community welfare office but they did not attend to them. The other mothers had been on a waiting list for a long time and the other mother ended up with her child being admitted to hospital due to malnutrition. If there was a policy in place which ensured the provision of social safety nets for the disabled people and their families or some type of grant or allowance, they would not be suffering like this.

The rehabilitation social workers have their own challenges. These include limited resources that must be shared with the health clinics such as vehicles and facilities. They are also faced with low budgets that have been administered under two ministries namely Local Government and the Ministry of Health, as discussed earlier, which inhibits the proper execution of their duties. If they are on leave or transferred no other officer does their work. There is also only one social worker in each district, having to cover a lot of clients, their families and the community. But it is better to

share resources than for the office to be without an officer at all. The same issues regarding resources, limited budgets, vacant offices and area coverage were discussed in the past few years by Ingstad (1990), Ingstad (1997) and Mompati (2000), but there has been no progress.

5.16

SUMMARY

Indeed mothers of the physically disabled school going children are faced with challenges in dealing with their psychosocial needs and they really need the support of the social worker in community based rehabilitation. They require support services with regards to meeting their basic needs, social needs, material needs and psychological needs in order to ensure their wellbeing and to be able to care for their physically disabled school going children.

CHAPTER SIX

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

6.1

INTRODUCTION

The psychosocial needs of mothers of physically disabled primary school children do exist and there is a need for social workers in Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) to assist them and their families. Their psychosocial needs are influenced by the many challenges which surround disability, even though these can be different in each country. Some of these challenges are that the statistics are not reliable, the types of disability are complicated, there are a variety of causes, but most of all the fact that people despite having accepted disability, still associate it with something evil. Furthermore, disabled children need special care as they have special needs. The challenges associated with disability can be medical, social or cultural in nature. The rationale of this chapter is to present the conclusions based on the findings of the study in order to make recommendations based on the conclusions. The recommendations will guide the rehabilitation social workers to provide effective intervention to assist the CBR programme when attending to the psychosocial needs of the mothers of the physically disabled primary school children.