Kinship Foster Care The Lived Experiences of Grandparents Fostering their Orphaned Teenage Grandchildren

Abstract

South Africa is experiencing an increase in kinship foster care. Given the high prevalence of this phenomenon, the study sought to understand grandparents' experiences of fostering teenage grandchildren. The study adopted a qualitative phenomenological approach to gather data from 10 grandparents through in-depth interviews. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to contextualise the experiences of these respondents, as viewed through the lens of family systems theory. The study found that grandparents fostering teens face financial, emotional, psychological, and physiological challenges. However, they do not perceive these challenges as insurmountable and attribute their resilience to religious, familial and communal support. The findings further identified the need for a standardised screening protocol for prospective foster grandmothers intending to foster their orphaned teenage grandchildren.

Keywords: kinship foster care, grandparents, teenage grandchildren, orphan, grandparents’ experiences

DOI: 10.32444/IJSW.2024.85.2.161-178