Abstract
D. Cur.
The greatest potential developed by mankind this century is the increasing awareness of one's portfolio of rights. Amongst the many rights expressed verbally, is the right to mental health. Adolescents whose parents abuse substances also qualify for this right. Fortunately, rights can be earned. Adolescents can acquire the right to mental health if they act in such a way that this will persuade others to notice and listen to them. The reality is that all efforts made towards promoting mental health of these adolescents will improve their general well-being. Mental health is generally regarded as an integral component of a human's emotional, social, spiritual and physical well-being. There is substantial evidence that adolescents living in families whose members abuse substances have difficulty in facilitating their own self-development. As a result, they are deprived of the capacity to mobilise their inner resources promoting their mental health. The study utilised a theory generative, qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual design. Two main samples were used. Firstly, adolescents in Grade 11 whose parents abuse substances, who at that time lived in and around rural villages within a 20 km radius of Mafikeng in the North West Province participated as respondents. The second group consist of key community leaders which consisted of groups from the Chiefs Council, police officers, community nurses and ministers of the Christian congregations. The main question that was posed during in-depth group interviews was, "How can adolescents whose parents abuse substances improve their life situations?" Adolescents and traditional healers were interviewed on a one-to-one level. A central question that adolescents had to answer was: "How can you be assisted to improve your day-to-day life?" Informed consent had been obtained from all participating adolescents and their "gatekeepers" (Cresswell, 1994: 142) and the reasons for conducting the research study were explained to all of them. The theory for this thesis has been derived inductively from data obtained from interviews with adolescents, key community people and field notes. Approaches that were used to generate theory are those suggested by Chinn and Kramer (1991: 80-108). In addition, the reasoning strategies that were employed are the analysis, synthesis, inductive and deductive methods described by Tesch (in Creswell, 1994: 155). The results were verified during literature control. Emerging from the results is a strong belief that adolescents selfdevelopment will assist them to overcome the difficulties related to their parents' substance abuse. They can do that by becoming actively involved in the process of improving their social, physical, psychological and spiritual dimensions. Concepts obtained from the results of the interviews were defined according to the steps described in Wandelt and Steward (1975: 64-69), Chinn and Kramer (1991: 84) and Copi (1987: 169). In relation to this, the term self-development was examined by using dictionary definitions, subject definitions and a model case description. Self-responsibility, facilitation and conscious-awareness were identified as essential criteria to selfdevelopment. Measures that were used to maintain trustworthiness in this thesis are truthvalue, applicability, consistency and neutrality (Guba & Lincoln, 1985: 290). The model of self-development therefore emphasises the active participation of adolescents in self-development to develop self-responsibility in their own empowerment. It is envisaged that as adolescents take self-responsibility they will discover the inherent capacities based on their body-mind-spirit and thereby improve their locus of control. Undoubtedly people can gain these capacities through their acquisition of skills, beliefs, attitudes, thoughts and values which enable them to step beyond the environment of substance abuse. This thesis therefore proposes a model of self-development on which guidelines for the advanced psychiatric nurse practitioner can be operationalised. This will assist adolescents to become self-aware and reorganise themselves in order to continue in the lifelong process of self-development.