Background
In South Africa, young women and girls are exposed to extremely high levels of gender-based violence (GBV) and HIV infection. Given the links between the two epidemics, it is important that HIV prevention programmes also address violence against women and children. The Global Fund’s Young Women and Girls (YWG) programme is a multi-pronged HIV prevention programme targeting young women and girls and was implemented in 10 districts in South Africa from April 2016 to March 2019. This briefing paper reports on the lessons learnt from a process evaluation of the child protection component of the programme.
The child protection component is the focus of this learning brief. This component was based on a residential therapeutic programme developed by Childline South Africa and the National Association of Child and Youth Care Workers (NACCW) in collaboration with the Department of Social Development (DSD). The therapeutic residential programme took place over the course of a week and consisted of individual and group therapeutic sessions for children and their primary caregivers. Therapy at the camps was provided by social workers, commonly referred to as therapists.
