Tomlinson, M;
Sherr, L;
Macedo, A;
Hunt, X;
Skeen, S;
(2017)
Paid staff or volunteers - does it make a difference? The impact of staffing on child outcomes for children attending community-based programmes in South Africa and Malawi.
Global Health Action
, 10
(1)
, Article 1381462. 10.1080/16549716.2017.1381462.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Globally, and in low and middle income countries (LMIC) specifically, there is a critical shortage of workers. The use of volunteers to support such care delivery systems has been examined, there is scant literature on the impact of volunteers on child outcome in high human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-affected communities. OBJECTIVES: To examine the differential impact of paid versus volunteer workforce in Community Based Organisations (CBOs) providing care to children and families affected by the HIV epidemic in South Africa and Malawi on child outcomes over time. METHODS: This study compared child outcomes for 989 consecutive children attending CBOs (0.7% refusal) at baseline and 854 at follow-up (86.3% response rate). RESULTS: Children attending CBOs with paid staff had higher self-esteem, fewer emotional/behavioural problems and less perceived stigma. Likewise, children attending CBOs with paid staff had fewer educational risks, and 20 heightened cognitive performance, and the digit-span memory test. After controlling for outcome at baseline, gender, age, HIV status, and disability, attending a CBO with paid staff remained a significant independent predictor of higher self-esteem scores, less perceived stigma, as well as fewer educational risks and better performance on the drawing test. We found no associations between CBO attendance - paid or volunteer - and children's depressive and trauma symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show that in order to most optimally impact on child outcome 30 community-based workers (CBWs) should ideally be paid with trained staff. Specialised input for more severe child difficulties is needed.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Paid staff or volunteers - does it make a difference? The impact of staffing on child outcomes for children attending community-based programmes in South Africa and Malawi |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/16549716.2017.1381462 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2017.1381462 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | HIV, Volunteer, child development, child well-being, cognitive, depression, education, self esteem, stigma, violence, workforce |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health > Infection and Population Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10040462 |
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