An exploratory study of spiritually based healing interventions in a child and youth care context

Abstract

Empirical research has shown that South African children and youth are continuously exposed to violence within their families and communities, resulting in a large number of children and youth left traumatized. Child and Youth Care is an emerging yet growing field which seeks to nurture and create safe spaces in multiple contexts such as families, schools and communities, particularly for abused and traumatized children. Although there are a range of developmental and therapeutic interventions that form part of training child and youth care workers to deal with the victims of varied forms of violence, little research exists in the field on the development of a model that incorporates indigenous, spiritual healing interventions for children, youth and their families and communities. This prompted the need for the current study. Spirituality has received limited attention in the field of child and youth care work, moreover as a response to addressing the healing needs of children, youth and families. Hence, the aim of the study was to develop a spiritually based healing methodology that can be used in a child and youth context. In order to achieve this, a qualitative research design was used to collect data through interviews, with twenty registered child and youth care students at the Durban University of Technology. After collecting, transcribing and analyzing data, together with a substantial review of literature, the study unearthed rich information pertaining to the types of violence experienced by children, youth, families and communities in rural contexts and the impact this violence has on the child. The study found that many rural communities attempt to address the healing needs of individuals and the entire community, through their customary rituals and philosophies. This subsequently informed the development of a spiritually based healing model that incorporated these practices. The participants of the current study also provided methodologies that would be significant to the healing model. Based on the findings of this study, it appears that spirituality may play an important role in child and youth care work and is thus imperative that future research pay significant attention to this domain of the child’s holistic development.