‘I want to fly but my wings are too short’. Resources of children living in child headed households

Abstract

This report describes research done on the resources of children living in child headed households (CHHs) in the Elandsdoorn township, Limpopo Province, South Africa. A child headed household is a household in which children of the same nuclear family or extended family live together without a parent or another adult caretaker. The aim of this study is to describe the already available resources of children living in CHHs, as well as the barriers to the resources they could receive, but which they do not receive yet because they have no access to them or are not eligible. The Welfare Diamond of Jenson (2004) was used as a framework to describe the resources and barriers to them. Jenson distinguishes between the state, the market, the family and the community.The main conclusion of this research is that the state has the most resources available to support children in CHHs, but that these resources are hard to access as no support is given to get this access. The market is a provider of material resources, but the market cannot provide enough material resources and is not accessible to each member of a CHH. Therefore the family and the community are at the moment the main providers of resources for CHHs. New policies to support CHHs should therefore focus on the strengthening and facilitating of family and community support, as well as provision of access to resources from the state.