Learning Groups > Strengthening Families
Children affected by HIV and AIDS are best cared for in functional families with basic income security, access to health care and education, and support from kin and community.
— Dr. Linda Richter and Dr. Lorraine Sherr, Co-Chairs of Strengthening Families Learning Group
Families and the HIV/AIDS Pandemic
Around the world, families—in all their many forms—are the primary source of protection and support for children and youth. Yet, most communities heavily burdened by HIV/AIDS struggle without help to shield children from HIV infection and care for those left vulnerable by AIDS-related illness or death. Only a very small proportion of AIDS-affected children and families—less than 10 percent—currently receive any assistance from sources outside their communities such as governments, non-profit-making organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and international donors.
JLICA believes that families and communities care best for children and must remain at the heart of the HIV/AIDS response.
Research and Objectives of the Strengthening Families Learning Group
The Strengthening Families Learning Group examined the family and social support systems available to protect children and adolescents at the frontlines of the HIV/AIDS pandemic from HIV infection, poverty and community disruption.
Some of the key research questions of this Learning Group included:
- In what way are children's health, education and development affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic?
- Which children and families should we focus on?
- What aspects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic impact on children and why?
- How are families changing as a result of adult illness and death associated with HIV and AIDS?
- What mistakes have we made and what now needs to be done?
Learning Group Leadership
The Strengthening Families Learning Group was led by two Co-Chairs:
- Linda Richter, based in Durban, South Africa, is the Executive Director of the Child, Youth, Family and Social Development Programme at the Human Sciences Research Council.
- Lorraine Sherr, based in London, United Kingdom, is the Head of the Health Psychology Unit at the Royal Free and University College Medical School.
Research Findings
Read LG1's final research papers.
Check out the Strengthening Families Learning Group Newsletters for more information about the LG's work and activities.
Substantial support has been provided by the Human Sciences Research Council, which houses additional resources on this learning group.
Co-Chairs
Linda Richter
Linda Richter is the executive director of Child, Youth, Family and Social Development at the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa. She is an honorary professor in Psychology and an elected fellow of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, an honorary professor in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of the Witwatersrand, an honorary research associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, and a visiting scholar in the School of Public Health at Harvard University. Professor Richter has conducted both basic and policy research in the fields of child and youth development, and has published more than 150 papers in the fields of child and adolescent development, infant and child assessment, and the effects of HIV/AIDS on children and families. She is the former chair of the Technical Steering Committee of the Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development at the World Health Organization, and the principal investigator of Birth to Twenty, a longitudinal study of the maturation and development of more than two thousand young people born in Soweto-Johannesburg in 1990.
Lorraine Sherr
Professor Lorraine Sherr is a clinical psychologist at University College London. She is the editor of the international journal AIDS Care as well as Psychology Health and Medicine and Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies. Professor Sherr’s research focuses include women, children, risk behavior, pregnancy, mental health provision, testing and prevention, and fatherhood. She is the author of several text books on HIV/AIDS (e.g. HIV/AIDS in Mothers and Babies; AIDS and Adolescents, AIDS and the Heterosexual Community; Grief and AIDS) and has contributed chapters to over 30 texts. Professor Sherr has advised governments, foundations and international bodies such as the Bernard van Leer Foundation, Save the Children, WHO and the British Psychological Society. She has been awarded a Churchill Fellowship for work on HIV/AIDS and mothers and babies.
