PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF ORPHANED CHILDREN IN ORPHANAGE HOMES IN KWARA STATE, NIGERIA
Keywords:
Orphanage homes, Orphaned children, Psychosocial development, Self- concept, Self-esteem, Life satisfaction, Social supportAbstract
The interaction of the child with the family is very germane as it provides the platform for psychosocial development of the child. In the advent of the death of the parents and where there is no relative ready to take care of the child, the child is left with no option than the orphanage homes. The study investigated the influence of orphanage homes on the psychosocial development of orphaned children in Kwara State. All the children in orphanage homes in Kwara State were the population for the study. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for this study. Two hundred and three orphaned children in Kwara State participated in the study using multi-stage sampling technique. The research instrument used for data gathering was a researchers’ designed instrument titled ‘Psychosocial Development of Orphaned Children Questionnaire’ (PDOCQ) with a reliability index of 0.83. Four research questions were answered and two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data were analyzed using frequency count, simple percentage, mean, standard deviation, t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The findings of the study revealed that orphanage homes had negative influence on the psychosocial development of orphaned children. Based on the findings, it was recommended that childhood educators with governments’ support should provide training programmes for caregivers, nannies and volunteers to further improve their knowledge and skills on childcare. Also, counsellors should provide counselling to orphanage operators to be committed to improving the welfare of the orphans and as well provide socio-emotional counselling to assist the orphaned children in their adjustment and psychosocial development.
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