Shifting parental roles, caregiving practices and the face of child development in low resource informal settlements of
- PDF / 884,700 Bytes
- 7 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 109 Downloads / 156 Views
Annals of General Psychiatry Open Access
PRIMARY RESEARCH
Shifting parental roles, caregiving practices and the face of child development in low resource informal settlements of Nairobi: experiences of community health workers and school teachers Manasi Kumar1,2* , Beatrice Madeghe3, Judith Osok‑Waudo1, Grace Nduku Wambua4 and Beatrice Kagai Amugune5
Abstract Approximately, 42% of the Kenyan population live below the poverty line. Rapid growth and urbanization of Kenya’s population have resulted in a changing poverty and food security environment in high-density urban areas. Lack of basic food needs in Kenya affects approximately 34.8% rural population and 7.6% of its urban population. Using multicommunity stakeholders such as teachers and community health workers (CHWs), this paper examined food insecu‑ rity and its consequences on caregiving practices and child development. A qualitative study design was utilized. Key informant interviews and focused-group discussions with four primary school teachers and three CHWs and a nurse in-charge working within Kariobangi and Kangemi were applied to elicit various perspectives from family-, schooland community-level challenges that influence caregiving practices and child development. Grounded theory method was applied for qualitative data sifting and thematic analysis. Our findings exposed various challenges at the school, family and the community levels that affect caregiving practices and consequent child development. Schoollevel challenges included lack of adequate amenities for effective learning, food insecurity, absenteeism and mental health challenges. Family-level barriers included lack of parenting skills, financial constraints, domestic violence and lack of social support, while community challenges such as unemployment, poor living conditions, cultural practices, lack of social support and poor community follow-up mechanisms contributed to poor parenting practices and child development. Parenting practices and holistic child development strategies in resource poor settings should focus on parenting skills, food security, quality education and addressing parents and children’s mental health challenges. Keywords: Parenting practices, Child development, Teachers and community health workers perspective Introduction In Kenya, 13.4 million Kenyans live below the poverty line, comprising 52.3% of the rural population and 34.8% of urban dwellers living in poverty [1]. Poverty index stands at 36.1% based on the Kenya integrated Household Budget Survey 2015/16 [2]. Extreme poverty defines that basic food needs are not being met even when all *Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Psychiatry, University of Nairobi, Nairobi 00100, Kenya Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
resources are devoted to food and this affects nearly 34.8% of the rural population in Kenya and 7.6% of its urban population [3]. Research evidence indicates that the concentration of poverty and malnutrition is now shifting from rural areas to ur
Data Loading...
