Orphans and Vulnerable Children - CRIN

What is Psychosocial Support?

In this activity, you will:

 Define what is meant by psychosocial support

Facilitator’s notes:

Why do OVC need psychosocial support?
Many orphans and vulnerable children experience great distress, trauma and depression. Mental or
psychological stress affects children and has a negative impact on their emotional and mental
development and well-being. Mental and spiritual support is as important as material support to OVC’s
development and ability to live well-balanced lives in the future. Psychosocial support will enable OVC
to strengthen their inner resources in order to cope with and overcome the many challenges they face.

Psychosocial support aims to :
 Strengthen the inner resources of the OVC
 Reduce and prevent the psychological impacts of HIV/AIDS on children
 Build resilience of OVC and enhance their coping capacities
 Build up the capacity of support systems for OVC
 Prepare children for the challenges and problems that they may encounter in their lives.

For this activity you will need:

 Flipchart and markers

To facilitate this activity:

1 Explain to participants what psychosocialand what psychosocial supportmean, as outlined in
your facilitator’s notes above. Write up the definitions on the flipchart.

2 Then discuss children’s needs with the group. Take participants through the different aims of
psychosocial support for OVC from your notes.

3 Divide the participants into groups. Ask them to discuss psychosocial support for orphans and
vulnerable children further. They should come up with any other reasons that they think
psychosocial support is especially important in OVC care. You should tell participants that they
should also think about how the lack of psychosocial support will affect a child in need.

4 Back in plenary, get groups to volunteer any new points they may have come up with that can be
added to your original list of aims for psychosocial support.

icon

here

Activity 1

Psychosocial support(PSS) has been defined as an ongoing process of meeting children’s

physical, emotional, psychological, social, mental and spiritual needs. All of these are

considered to be important elements in the growth and development of the children.

Psychosocial support goes beyond meeting just the physical or material needs of the children.

30 minutes

Guide to Mobilising and Strengthening Community-Led Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children Unit 2, Module 2^157