Development of a programme for support of community home-based caregivers in the Mutale Local Municipality of the the Vhembe District, in South Africa

Abstract

In South Africa, home-based care programmes are playing a major role in the promotion of rural health. Community home-based caregivers in the Mutale municipality and other areas of South Africa work under these programmes as volunteers and are therefore the backbone of home-based care. To date, the support that the home-based caregivers get is through the government's Department of Health, and this is aften on an ad-hoc basis. The purpose of the study was to develop a program me of support for community home-based caregivers based on the findings from the situational analysis in the Mutale local municipality of the Vhembe district in Limpopo province. The study was conducted in two phases in which phase one constitutes a situational analysis and phase 2 development of a programme for support of community home-based caregivers. An exploratory sequentia! mixed method approach was used to collect data from community home-based caregivers and community stakeholders. The findings of the situational analysis revealed that community home-based caregivers experienced psychological, physical and financial challenges when providing home-based care and therefore there was need for their support. These findings formed the basis of the programme development in phase two of the study. The main elements of the support programme thus included: the home and the community as the context in which home-based care should be supported, stakeholders who are traditional leaders, religious leaders and civic leaders who should contribute in supporting community home-based caregivers, the dynamics which include compassion, resilience and willingness to care for other people are the factors which drive the community home-based caregivers to volunteer to provide home-based care, the process of the support programme involved capacity building through involvement, effective communication, participation and engagement and the outcome is an effective support programme in which community home-based caregivers are empowered to make independent decisions and ownership of home-based care programmes.