Home-Based Care as a Model for Social Development

Dickson Masindano
Country Director, Buckner Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya

Rosemary Wasilwa
Regional Director, Buckner Kenya, Kitale, Kenya

Jon Singletary
Baylor University, School of Social Work, Waco, TX, USA
Direct comments to: Jon_Singletary@baylor.edu

 Abstract

This paper reviews research related to best care options for vulnerable children and their families in Africa and makes a case presentation of one international best practice from a social development perspective. Buckner Kenya responds to multiple household needs with a range of services including a Home-Based Care Program that offers merry-go-round funding, a version of a rotating savings and credit association (ROSCA), for the development of microenterprises. The case is presented in light of the social and economic development potential of the program. Programs such as this one will be shown to protect orphans and vulnerable children by promoting social and economic development for families and their communities.

Keywords: Africa; Kenya; Buckner Kenya; social development; economic development; community development; home-based care; rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCA); microenterprise; orphans and vulnerable children

 About the Authors

Dickson Masindano is the Director of Buckner Kenya. He earned a B.A. at University of Nairobi and his M.A. in Counseling from Hardin-Simmons University. Mr. Masindano returned home to Nairobi to charter this affiliate of Buckner International in 2001, where he began the first nationally recognized foster care program in Kenya.

Rosemary Wasila serves as the Regional Director of Buckner Kenya. Mrs. Wasila earned her B.A. and an M.A. in Educational Psychology from Moi University in Eldoret Kenya. She began Buckner's foster care programs in the rural regions of Busia and Kitale. Mrs. Wasila currently oversees more than a dozen programs serving children and families in Kitale, Kenya.

Jon Singletary is the Associate Dean for Baccalaureate Studies in the Baylor School of Social Work and the Diana R. Garland Endowed Chair of Child and Family Studies. He has served as field instructor for student social work interns in Kenya for Buckner and has facilitated service learning mission trips in Sub-Saharan Africa for the past decade.