Evaluation study of the psycho-social needs of volunteer community home-based carers

South Africa has the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world. Poverty, poor access to basic amenities and health care, limited information, and limited capacity in communities all exacerbate vulnerability to HIV. As more households in South Africa become affected by HIV/AIDS, there is a growing need for assistance with care and support. Households are increasingly faced with a challenge of coping with the needs of sick family members such as the need for food, assistance with daily living, palliative care and assistance to obtain social security benefits for the young and very old. The dire shortage of professional health practitioners in South Africa means that the greater burden of care for orphan and vulnerable children (OVC) and people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) remains with informal community home-based carers (CHBC). Informal community home-based carers who provide assistance include household or family members, friends, community members who work through non-governmental or community-based organizations. Households may use one or more of these sources of support in order to cope with caring for sick members OVC and PLWHA typically face a wide range of stressful events and circumstances and depend on informal CHBC to address these challenging situations. Community home-based carers, on the other hand, have psychological, social, economic, physical needs which need to be met to enable them to do their care-giving work. They also need training and resources, to meet the needs of clients they take care of. This report provides the results of the survey and qualitative study that ware conducted with community home-based carers working for the SARCS.