IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v48y2015icp111-116.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bridging the gap: The impact of home visiting programs for orphans and vulnerable children on social grant uptake in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Thurman, Tonya R.
  • Kidman, Rachel
  • Taylor, Tory M.

Abstract

Cash transfer programs hold significant potential to mitigate the economic burdens resulting from the HIV epidemic and enhance the wellbeing of affected children. South Africa offers two cash transfers designed specifically to benefit children: the Child Support Grant, for low income families with children, and the Foster Child Grant, for children living outside of parental care. Given the high proportion of HIV-affected children who qualify for these grants, increasing grant access among eligible families is a natural objective for many programs targeting orphans and vulnerable children. We present results from a quasi-experimental study examining differences in grant uptake over a two year period among 1487 children enrolled in one of two types of supportive home visiting programming: volunteer-based or paraprofessional. The study also examined related outcomes including household food security and children's access to basic educational and material needs. Results show that programs staffed with trained paraprofessionals who received training, compensation and other support were significantly more effective at linking families to social grants for children. Controlling for important covariates, at follow-up participants in the paraprofessional model programs were nearly three times as likely as volunteer-based service recipients to have access to the highest grant they were eligible to receive. Grant receipt was also positively associated with household food security and children's obtainment of basic educational and material resources. Effective strategies for promoting social grant access among HIV-affected households therefore have the potential to yield significant improvements in wellbeing for orphans and vulnerable children.

Suggested Citation

  • Thurman, Tonya R. & Kidman, Rachel & Taylor, Tory M., 2015. "Bridging the gap: The impact of home visiting programs for orphans and vulnerable children on social grant uptake in South Africa," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 111-116.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:48:y:2015:i:c:p:111-116
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2014.12.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740914004149
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.childyouth.2014.12.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miller, Candace M. & Tsoka, Maxton & Reichert, Kathryn, 2011. "The impact of the Social Cash Transfer Scheme on food security in Malawi," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 230-238, April.
    2. Aliber, Michael, 2003. "Chronic Poverty in South Africa: Incidence, Causes and Policies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 473-490, March.
    3. Anne Case & Victoria Hosegood & Frances Lund, 2005. "The reach and impact of Child Support Grants: evidence from KwaZulu-Natal," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 467-482.
    4. Barrientos, Armando & Byrne, Jasmina & Peña, Paola & Villa, Juan Miguel, 2014. "Social transfers and child protection in the South," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(P2), pages 105-112.
    5. Frikkie Booysen & Servaas Van Der Berg, 2005. "The Role Of Social Grants In Mitigating The Socio‐Economic Impact Of Hiv/Aids In Two Free State Communities1," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 73(s1), pages 545-563, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eale E. Kris & Mphuthi David, 2020. "Perceptions of Parents/Guardians About the Effectiveness of Future Families Orphans and Vulnerable Children Programme in Olievenhoutbosch, South Africa," Global Journal of Health Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 12(4), pages 1-20, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francesco Burchi & Margherita Scarlato & Giorgio d'Agostino, 2018. "Addressing Food Insecurity in Sub‐Saharan Africa: The Role of Cash Transfers," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(4), pages 564-589, December.
    2. Mitra, Sophie, 2010. "Disability Cash Transfers in the Context of Poverty and Unemployment: The Case of South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(12), pages 1692-1709, December.
    3. Oludele Akinloye Akinboade & Segun Adeyemi Adeyefa, 2018. "An Analysis of Variance of Food Security by its Main Determinants Among the Urban Poor in the City of Tshwane, South Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 61-82, May.
    4. Priscilla Gutura, 2014. "Boosting Their Stomachs’: The Role of Social Grants in South Africa," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 6(2), pages 105-119.
    5. Lara Cockx & Nathalie Francken, 2016. "Evolution and impact of EU aid for food and nutrition security: a review," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven 540512, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    6. Marisa Coetzee, 2013. "Finding the Benefits: Estimating the Impact of The South African Child Support Grant," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 81(3), pages 427-450, September.
    7. Fabrice Murtin & Federica Marzo, 2007. "HIV/AIDS and Poverty in South Africa: a Bayesian Estimation," Cahiers de recherche 07-08, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    8. Indunil De Silva & Sudarno Sumarto, 2015. "How do Educational Transfers Affect Child Labour Supply and Expenditures? Evidence from Indonesia of Impact and Flypaper Effects," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(4), pages 483-507, December.
    9. Wells Thomas R., 2019. "Just End Poverty Now: The Case for a Global Minimum Income," Basic Income Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 14(2), pages 1-13, December.
    10. Ghulam Mustafa, 2022. "Weather Shocks, Unconditional Cash Transfers and Household Food Outcomes," PIDE-Working Papers 2022:8, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    11. Baiyegunhi, L.J.S. & Fraser, Gavin C.G., 2010. "Determinants of Household Poverty Dynamics in Rural Regions of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa," 2010 AAAE Third Conference/AEASA 48th Conference, September 19-23, 2010, Cape Town, South Africa 97078, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    12. Fintel, Dieter von & Fourie, Johan, 2019. "The great divergence in South Africa: Population and wealth dynamics over two centuries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 759-773.
    13. Santos Bila & Mduduzi Biyase, 2022. "Determinants of Subjective Poverty in Rural and Urban Areas of South Africa," Economics Working Papers edwrg-02-2022, College of Business and Economics, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, revised 2022.
    14. Sabina Alkire & Suman Seth, 2015. "Identifying destitution through linked subsets of multidimensionally poor: An ordinal approach," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-151, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Salazar, Lina & Aramburu, Julián & González-Flores, Mario & Winters, Paul, 2016. "Sowing for food security: A case study of smallholder farmers in Bolivia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 32-52.
    16. Morel Berendson, Ricardo & Girón, Liz, 2022. "The multidimensional impacts of the Conditional Cash Transfer program Juntos in Peru," MERIT Working Papers 2022-012, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    17. Leight, Jessica & Hirvonen, Kalle & Zafar, Sarim, 2024. "The effectiveness of cash and cash plus interventions on livelihoods outcomes: Evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis," OSF Preprints dnc2r, Center for Open Science.
    18. Daniel Neff, 2007. "Subjective Well-Being, Poverty and Ethnicity in South Africa: Insights from an Exploratory Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 80(2), pages 313-341, January.
    19. Hull, Elizabeth, 2014. "The Social Dynamics of Labor Shortage in South African Small-Scale Agriculture," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 451-460.
    20. Neryvia Pillay Bell, 2020. "The impacts of unconditional cash transfers on schooling in adolescence and young adulthood Evidence from South Africa," Working Papers 10023, South African Reserve Bank.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:48:y:2015:i:c:p:111-116. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.