Perceptions of Parents/Guardians About the Effectiveness of Future Families Orphans and Vulnerable Children Programme in Olievenhoutbosch, South Africa

The people with the greatest stake in Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) interventions are the children and their parents/guardians. Unfortunately, most OVC programmes are predesigned and implemented without considering beneficiaries’ perceptions when developing solutions (ALI 2007:15). The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the perceptions of orphans and vulnerable children’s parents/guardians about the effectiveness of Future Families’ children programme in Olievenhoutbosch as a way to explore how much they are involved in the process of designing the programme activities and if they perceive the programme as effective in responding to their family needs..

This study used a qualitative, explorative and descriptive design. Thirteen (13) parents/guardians of children registered with the Future Families were interviewed on the effectiveness of the Future Families programme using a semi-structure interview guide.

The study results suggested that parents/guardians were happy with Future Families’ services and believed the programme is effective in responding to their families’ needs. However, the researcher questioned the meaning of that happiness and established that beneficiaries were not involved in the program key planning activities including programme resource management and could not appreciate the value of the service that is provided to them against the funding value. The researcher also established that beneficiaries perceived the programme interventions as if it was a favour from the implementing organisation. That perception conditioned beneficiaries’ attitude to be thankful to the programme instead of having open criticism toward the program.