Young adults’ experiences of having lived in a residential care facility in Johannesburg

Abstract: This person centred study aims to give a voice to young adults who have lived in a child and youth care facility in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their reflections provide insight into residential care; how they experienced growing up in care and how they have coped since leaving care, to gain a fuller understanding of what their personal experiences of residential care were. This study is embedded in the field of social work but is also relevant to the field of child and youth care as it contributes to the improvement of services to the vulnerable children who are in residential care. It is underpinned by humanistic theories such as the person-centred approach and Maslow’s self-actualisation theory, and is supported by the ‘Circle of Courage’ and ecological theory. This qualitative study made use of individual interviews and a focus group in order to obtain rich data that relates to various aspects of child and youth care. The data was then analysed using thematic analysis, whereby themes and trends were identified. The findings were therefore based on the thematic framework developed during the analysis of the data. The findings highlight the most important aspects of the experience of care. From these findings, conclusions and recommendations were made for the field of child and youth care. This dissertation is concluded with a discussion on how the research objectives were met and a summary on the most important findings of the experiences of care as told by the research participants, and as found in relevant literature. Recommendations for practice and future research are then presented; these recommendations provide information that can enhance the profession of child and youth care and encourage continuous research in the field of child care. In doing so, the best interests of children in care and the standards for best practice in child and youth care can be upheld and children can continue to be given a voice. This is in line with the developmental and person centred approach which the field of social work encourages and holds in high regard – to work in partnership with people, to hear their voices and to empower them to make their voices heard and find their true potential in life.M.A. (Social Work