Care and Support Programmes for Orphans and Vulnerable Children: Achievements and Implications of HIV/AIDS Funded Project in Osun State, Nigeria

Abstract

Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) and their families face many challenges but there are opportunities to provide care and support programmes for them in their communities. This paper presents the achievements and implications of HIV Programme Development Project (HPDP) funded by World Bank on care and support services for OVC in Osun State, Nigeria. Eight Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) were engaged by Osun State Agency for the Control of AIDS (OSACA) as part of HPDP to provide care and support services for OVC between year 2013 and 2015. Using reporting tools, data collected by the CSOs were entered into District Health Information System 2 (DHIS2) platform and analysed using Microsoft Excel. In addition, Key Informant Interviews (KII) were conducted among the selected CSOs, OVC and the caregivers who were beneficiaries of HPDP in Osun State, Nigeria. A total of 12,353 OVC were reached and about half of them were female. There was an increase in the trends of number of OVC seen and the support services provided from the year 2013 to 2015. Of the 12,353 OVC that benefitted from this programme, 1905 (15.4%) received health care services, 5383 (43.6%) received nutritional services, 5317 (43.0%) received educational services and 9861 (79.8%) were provided with psychosocial support services. About 503 (4.1%) of the OVC received economic strengthening services while 270 (2.2%) of household heads were provided with economic support. However, 3 OVC How to cite this paper: Adejimi, A.

Effect of Developing Protocol of Care on Satisfaction of Bio-psychosocial Needs of Institutionalized School Age Orphans Children

“…This finding is supported by Abd-El-Kader, (2016), who mentioned that, the older school age children tended to practice healthier lifestyle than the younger and concluded that there was a significant positive corellation between observation of the biopsychosocial needs of the studied subjects and their age and educational grade (16) . Also, the findings of the studies carried out by Adejimi et al, (2019), Lee et al, (2019), and Chemwende and Mbogo, (2021), are in the same line as they reported that, there was significant association between wellbeing of the study subjects and their educational grade and age (23,33,34) . Vol.…”

“…This finding is similar to a finding from a study conducted by Alqahtani, (2021) who determined the effect of a proposed program to improve quality of life for the orphans at social care homes (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia), and a study conducted by Adejimi et al, (2019), in Osun State, Nigeria. Both studies reported that implementing care and support programs for orphans and vulnerable children was significantly responding to the physical, social and psychological needs of those children and ensuring better care for them (22,23) . As well, the study done by Abd-El-Kader, (2016), revealed the effect of nursing protocol based care on bio-psycho-social needs of school age orphanage children in Cairo Governorate, Egypt, concluded that, the intervention was successful in improving the satisfaction and meeting the basic needs of school age orphan children (16) .…”