Social Security and Orphans in Foster Care: The Experiences of Social Workers and Home Based Care Workers in the South African State's Provision of the Foster Care Grant

South Africa’s HIV epidemic remains the largest in the world. It is estimated that there were 5.6 million people living with HIV in 2009 (WHO, 2011: 24). South Africa had an estimated 1.9 million children who had been orphaned by AIDS by 2009 (SAHRC, 2011: 57) and this figure is expected to increase to an estimated 4 million children (approximately 10% of the entire population) by 2015 (Whiteside and Sunter in Madhavan, 2004: 1443). The South African state has a well-developed system of social security. The state introduced a foster care grant, which is unique to it, in response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic (Hearle and Ruwanpura, 2009: 427). For the state to get the foster care grant to the orphans there are actors that play a mediating role between the state and the orphans in foster care. This paper pays particular attention at the experiences of social workers and home based care workers in the South African state’s provision of the foster care grant in Ha-Makuya, a rural district in Northern Venda (Limpopo Province). During the Apartheid era, Ha-Makuya suffered systematic underdevelopment and is now considered to be a national poverty node (Berman and Allen, 2012: 81). Data were collected from seven purposively sampled social workers and home based care workers who were interviewed in May 2013. It was found that the application of the foster care grant was dependent on the role played by the home based care workers as they were the “eyes in the community” and also they, according to the social workers, “liaised” with them. This paper also illuminates the functionality of other social institutions. These social institutions include the family, the legal system and the social services.