Joint Learning Initiative On Children and HIV/AIDS

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 examines 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 include:

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 is 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

The Learning Group has commissioned 12 papers examining the issues affecting children and families in areas severely impacted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. These papers will inform JLICA policy recommendations that will be released in late 2008.

Read the Strengthening Families Learning Group Newsletters for more information about recent research findings.

Substantial support has been provided by the Human Sciences Research Council, which houses additional resources on this learning group.

Find out more about JLICA's other Learning Groups.

View Co-Chairs

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 holds Honorary Professorships at the Universities of KwaZulu-Natal, Witwatersrand and Melbourne in Australia and is a Consultant in the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA). She has conducted both basic and policy research in the fields of child and youth development as applied to health, education and welfare, and has published more than 150 papers in the fields of child and adolescent development, infant and child assessment, protein-energy malnutrition, street and working children, and the effects of HIV/AIDS on children and families, including HIV prevention among young people.

For many years she was a member, and chaired, the Technical Steering Committee of the Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development at the World Health Organization in Geneva. She also chaired the first meeting of FutureThink, organized by the WHO, to anticipate threats to the health and wellbeing of children and adolescents. Professor Richter is 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, and who are being followed up prospectively for 20 years. Her books and monographs include Mandela's Children: Growing up in Post-Apartheid South Africa; The Sexual Abuse of Young Children in Southern Africa; The Importance of Caregiver-Child Interactions for the Survival and Healthy Development of Young Children; Family and Community Interventions for Children Affected by HIV/AIDS; Baba: Men and Fatherhood in South Africa; Strengthening Systems to Support the Health Development of Young Children in Communities Affected by HIV/AIDS; Building Resilience: Rights-Based Approach to Children and HIV/AIDS in Africa; and Where the Heart Is: Meeting the Psychosocial Needs of Young Children in the Context of HIV/AIDS.

Lorraine Sherr

Professor Lorraine Sherr is a Clinical Psychologist based at University College London. She has worked in HIV both clinically and as a researcher. She is the editor of the International Journal AIDSCare as well as Psychology Health and Medicine and Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies. Professor Sherr has sat on the World Health Organization Strategic Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS (2004-2007) and has carried out a wide portfolio of research both nationally and internationally. This includes women, children, risk behaviour, pregnancy, treatment, mental health provision, VCT, prevention interventions, internet, fatherhood, reproduction, discrimination and Scenario analyses. She has written a number of text books on HIV/AIDS (e.g. HIV/AIDS in Mothers and Babies; AIDS and Adolescents, AIDS and the Heterosexual Community; Grief and AIDS) as well as contributing chapters to over 30 texts. She has published widely in peer reviewed journals.

She is one of the International Steering Committee of AIDSImpact - the international biopsychosocial meetings on HIV/AIDS. She sits on the steering committee of CCABA and has sat on the conference committee of the IAS (Geneva), the Executive of the British HIV Association, the French ANRS and provided evaluation for the Dutch HIV/AIDS strategy. She has been involved with policy and provision with contributions to the Swedish Parliament, co-chairing the European funded HIV policy initiatives (HIV and Discrimination, HIV and legal service provision, HIV and ante-natal screening policy). She has provided input for foundations and international bodies such as the Bernard van Leer foundation, Save the Children, WHO Africa, WHO and the British Psychological Society. She has co-authored a number of policy directed publications in relation to children and HIV such as "Where the Heart is" (jointly with Richter and Foster), HIV/AIDS and Children - mapping the field, and HIV/AIDS and children - an annotated bibliography (all Bernard van Leer publications). She has been awarded a Churchill Fellowship for work on HIV/AIDS and mothers and babies.