Identifying Asset-Based Trends in Sustainable Programmes Which Support Vulnerable Children.

Author(s): Liesel Ebersöhn, Irma Eloff

Published: 2006 in South African Journal of Education

URL to article

Research Focus Area: Asset-based best practices for serving Black and Latinx teens

Abstract:

In this article we argue that the asset-based approach is one explanation for sustainability in programmes supporting vulnerable children. We structure our argument by formulating five questions and then pursuing tentative answers to them. We start our contention by highlighting the particularity of the challenges faced in schools to support vulnerable children. We then consider the common denominators in programmes that have shown evidence of sustainable practices for supporting vulnerable children. This is followed by a deliberated link of the identified sustainability factors (e.g. common denominators) with the asset-based approach as a theoretical framework. Subsequently, we consider why the asset-based approach can be considered in terms of supporting vulnerable children in education. We indicate the similarities between the asset-based approach and current discourses focusing on the notion of schools as nodes of support and care. We conclude by suggesting that knowledge of asset-based good practices could be sha red with families in school-based sessions, thereby developing schools’, families’ and communities’ capacity to support vulnerable children.

Research Question(s):

Who are vulnerable children?
What educational measures exist to support vulnerable children?
Why are some educational practices and programmes successful and sustainable in addressing these challenges?
If common denominators exist between effective and sustainable interventions, can these be linked to a theoretical framework?
How can this knowledge of good practices be utilised in schools to empower educators, families and communities?

Methods:

Literature Review

Setting:

South African schools and their surrounding communities

Key Findings:

Who are vulnerable children?
- Lack of common understanding of what vulnerability entails already presents a challenge in terms of educational support. This article identifies the following groups of children as vulnerable.
  - children with disabilities
  - children with chronic illnesses
  - children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS
  - children without care-givers
  - children living in poverty-stricken conditions
  - children who have been abandoned
  - children who work
  - children working as sex-workers
  - children living on the streets
  - children who are being neglected;
  - children who are being/have been abused
  - children who are refugees and illegal immigrants
  - children used as soldiers
- Vulnerable children face a variety of multi-layered challenges.
What educational measures exist to support vulnerable children?
- Various governmental policy and accompanying initiatives have been developed to address the challenges faced by vulnerable children in schools. These include:
  - Signposts for Safe Schools (2004), a combined initiative between the departments of Education and Safety and Security to counter violence in schools in terms of discriminatory acts like bullying.
  - The National Policy on HIV/AIDS for Learners and Educators in Public Schools and Students and Educators in Further Education and Training Institutions (DoE, 2001). This is a policy document focusing on children made vulnerable by HIV- and AIDS-related crises.
  - A strong movement towards inclusive education as reflected in numerous national committee activities and legislative documents (Department of National Education (DNE), 1997; DNE, 1999; DNE, 2001). This movement aims at both societal and educational transformation in that it compels the development of a single, inclusive system of education that has the capacity to provide support to all learners.  It does not seem, however, that these policies are widely or effectively implemented.
Why are some educational practices and programmes successful and sustainable in addressing these challenges?
- The researchers identified the following as common denominators in programmes that were successful and sustainable in the aim of accommodating vulnerable children:
  - Community-based intervention
  - Building and strengthening internal capacities
  - Community resource mobilization
  - Networking and establishing links
  - Advocacy
  - Use of embedded (indigenous) knowledge and practice
  - Information sharing
If common denominators exist between effective and sustainable interventions, can these be linked to a theoretical framework?
- Yes, these common denominators can be linked to the asset-based approach.
- The asset-based approach is opposed to the needs-based approach, which starts out by focusing on a community’s needs, deficiencies and problems. This approach fails because it creates mental maps of communities that encourage its members to think about themselves as fundamentally deficient and as powerless victims of their circumstances.
- The asset-based approach by contrast, places focus on the capacities, skills and social resources of people and their communities. This is not to deny that communities have problems and deficiencies, but to start out from what the community has, rather than what it does not.
- The asset-based approach
  - does not ignore the external context of and constraints on communities, nor does it imply that these communities do not need additional resources from outside. Rather, it suggests that outside resources can be more effectively utilised if the community has already identified and mobilised its own resources, as well as defined the agendas for the utilisation of external resources.
  - is “internally focused”, meaning it focuses its attention onto local residents, associations, and institutions
  - is a “bottom-up approach” that shifts emphasis from a service perspective to an empowerment perspective
  - is relationship-driven by definition

Implications:

(5) How can this knowledge of good practices be utilised in schools to empower educators, families and communities? Under the asset-based approach, - schools would be nodes of care and support for vulnerable children- this is because they serve as points of intersection between communities and service providers, - Social development services, health services and NGOs would have an entry point via schools to vulnerable children, their families and communities at large. - Ideally this would mean an in-house (school) nurse (maybe even a clinic), social worker, feeding programmes, and access to government grants. - The community at large would also participate in these service, for example - By the cultivation of food stocks for use in the schools — making use of community knowledge — as well as labour and seed contributions. - By the identification of care-givers who can participate in extra-curricular NGO activities focused on life skill development, homework support, games - The infrastructure of schools would be utilised after hours. - Classrooms could serve as bedrooms for children on the streets - Adult learners could attend literacy classes in the afternoons or evenings - Schools could form clusters to share resources and mutually benefit from collaborative efforts - Families could be introduced to examples of sustainable programmes, especially the prevalence of asset-based trends in them, and made aware of the need for early identification of vulnerability of children. - Identified community leaders (principals, traditional leaders, faith-based leaders) would be pivotal in facilitating knowledge of the asset-based approach. - It would be ideal if professionals from various sectors could be present in the role of partners, facilitators, observers and resources during early information-dissemination gatherings. Their future roles would be those of consultants, mediators and resource persons. - These school-based meetings between stakeholders would occur frequently in order to strengthen capacity, motivate and support, and exchange ideas.

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