Child and youth care workers (CYCWs) are a crucial and growing component of South Africa’s national response to HIV and AIDS and other problems affecting children and families. CYCWs use the community-centred Isibindi model of care to reach the most vulnerable with key services including psychosocial, health, economic and education support. Understanding how to support retention in the CYCW workforce is vital to programme quality and sustainability.

Effective strategies for HIV prevention among adolescent orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in South Africa, particularly girls and young women, are critically needed. To date, adolescent-only educational and behavioral interventions have underpinned prevention efforts with mixed success. Addressing a broader array of adolescent risk factors may help to lower HIV prevalence in this priority population. Let’s Talk is a structured adolescent HIV prevention intervention that goes beyond standard knowledge and skills-based programming to address family dynamics and mental health.

Many children in South Africa live outside of parental care, due to orphanhood, parental labour migration, unemployment, and for other reasons. Family members and other adults thus play an important role in providing substitute care. Non-parental caregivers have been found to experience high levels of psychological distress and burden, potentially leading to poor outcomes for children. The present analysis examines whether these and other potential risk factors are associated with caregiver-perpetrated physical aggression towards adolescent girls living outside of parental care in the Free State province.

Early bereavement is common in South Africa, where almost a fifth of children have lost a parent and many more have experienced the death of another family member or friend. However, little is known about young people’s psychological responses to loss in this setting.

Almost one-fifth of children in South Africa have lost a parent; many have experienced multiple losses. Bereaved children are at increased risk for psychological health problems including maladaptive grief and depression. Despite the scale of need, evidence for effective psychological support services is limited.

Children and adolescents affected by HIV are at elevated risk for depression, yet research on related interventions in this population is scarce in sub-Saharan Africa. This study sought to examine the effects of interpersonal psychotherapy for groups (IPTG) on depressive symptomology among orphaned and vulnerable adolescents in South Africa—home to the world’s largest HIV epidemic.

Community-based care and support programmes for orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) and their families are a critical component of HIV prevention, care and treatment efforts worldwide. Addressing the challenges that confront programme evaluators in these contexts can help promote robust evidence for effective programming.

Home visiting is a popular component of programs for HIV‐affected children in sub‐Saharan Africa. Many programs are staffed by volunteers whose training and compensation is minimal, raising questions about whether investing in paraprofessional workforce development might yield measurable gains in beneficiaries’ well‐being.

Cash transfers for low‐income families are an effective investment in children’s health and well‐being. Identifying ways to increase social grant uptake among orphans and vulnerable children and their families in South Africa is therefore a priority. Home visitors may be particularly well‐positioned to connect families with the highest grants for which they are eligible.

HIV counseling and testing underpin sustainable epidemic control, and international guidelines call for all children in generalized epidemic settings, such as South Africa, to be tested routinely. Identifying effective strategies for expanding pediatric uptake of HIV counseling and testing services is therefore critical.

Adolescent orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) are at heightened risk of HIV infection. Effective preventive strategies are therefore urgently needed. While behavioural interventions are the cornerstone of HIV prevention, psychological interventions may also hold promise as part of a coordinated effort to decrease sexual risk‐taking.

This brief describes the findings and program implications from a study designed to develop critical knowledge on “what works” to improve the well-being of children affected by HIV and AIDS.  Community-based home visiting, in which care workers provide a range of support services during regular visits to the child’s home, is an increasingly popular service delivery approach in South Africa. However, there is enormous variation in how home visiting programs are implemented.  The aim of the study is to evaluate the relative impact on child wellbeing of a range of home visiting models.

Focusing on 13 program sites in KwaZulu-Natal, this report describes the support offered by Isibindi Child and Youth Care Workers (CYCWs) to beneficiary families as well as changes in key measures of children’s wellbeing over a two year period. We further examine differences in the provision of care and support services and changes in wellbeing between beneficiaries at high- and lower-functioning Isibindi sites, according to NACCW’s own site assessment process.