Behind the Gates of Safety: Trauma and Behaviour at an SOS Children's Village in South Africa
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35898/ghmj-931355Keywords:
Childhood trauma, Residential care, SOS Children's Village, Trauma-informed care, Secondary traumatic stressAbstract
Background: Children entering alternative care systems such as SOS Children's Village typically carry histories of neglect, abandonment, abuse, or family breakdown. Little research examines how frontline staff recognise and respond to trauma within SOS Children's Village settings, a gap relevant to child mental health policy and health system strengthening in South Africa and other low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Aims: This study describes how childhood trauma manifests behaviourally and developmentally among children in residential alternative care and identifies systemic gaps limiting a trauma-informed response.
Methods: A secondary qualitative analysis used Braun and Clarke's six-phase thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with six purposively sampled staff respondents at a single SOS Children's Village in South Africa, spanning frontline and management-level roles. The UNISA College of Education Ethics Review Committee granted ethical clearance.
Results: Six themes were identified: nature and sources of trauma, behavioural manifestation, mental health and developmental impact, secondary trauma of caregivers, systemic barriers, and protective factors and resilience; most consistently, secondary trauma of caregivers and systemic barriers. Trauma manifested through externalising behaviour (aggression, bullying, sexualised conduct, including re-enacted sexual victimisation in one case), developmental delay, and attachment difficulty. Compounding these were limited psychological services, no formal mental health framework, and caregiver-reported secondary traumatic stress. Residentially raised children appeared more dependent post-care than those in community-based family strengthening; given the single-site design, this is illustrative rather than generalisable.
Conclusion: Childhood trauma at this SOS Children's Village follows a consistent behavioural and developmental profile that extends psychologically to caregivers. Addressing this requires a formal, organisation-wide trauma-informed framework, caregiver supervision, and interdisciplinary case coordination. These offer concrete ways to strengthen trauma-informed practice in comparable residential care settings, with implications for child mental health policy and health system strengthening in South Africa and other LMICs.
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