Abstract
D.Cur.
The occupation of the SOS mother, which involves long-term care for orphaned and abandoned
children under the SOS Children's Villages organisation, is unique and peculiar in many respects.
She is expected to play a dual role of being a foster parent and a childcare professional, at the
same time. The latter presents challenges of its own because the professional status is only
recognised internally by the organisation. In one way or another, most of the children for which
the SOS mother is responsible, have been exposed to some form of trauma. The problems of
caring and parenting such children are well documented in the literature. These include learning
and behaviour problems. For this reason, the mental health of the SOS mother, who is the focus
of this study, should be of special interest to mental health practitioner.
The motivation for this study arises out of a change that the organisation is trying to enforce in
the work of the SOS mother. This change comes with the release of the new quality standards to
guide village work. One of these standards, the SOS mother's autonomy, requires the SOS
mother, like any mother in the community to take full responsibility for her SOS family,
including the development of the children under her care. When she needs help, she seeks expert
advice from village co-workers and from the community. In addition, the career of the SOS
mother has to be developed so that she functions like a childcare professional and that her
training is recognised by the government and other training institutions.
This represents a big change from how most SOS villages have been operating. Up to this point,
village co-workers made important decisions about the SOS family and the children while the
SOS mother did the caring part. The change is expected to affect the interactions between SOS
mothers and their co-workers and consequently, their mental health. For this reason, it was felt
that there was a need to facilitate the implementation of the SOS mother's autonomy standard,
which would also promote the mental health of the SOS mothers.
The purpose of this research was, therefore, to develop and describe a model that would serve as
a framework for the advanced psychiatric nurse practitioner to promote the mental health of SOS mothers by facilitating the implementation of the SOS mother's autonomy within SOS Children's
Villages of Southern Africa Region 11. The research also focused on developing guidelines for
the implementation of the model in practice.