School connectedness as psychological resilience factor in children affected by HIV/AIDS

Course overview

This course examines children in South Africa who became orphans as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Orphanhood is associated with a significant detrimental impact on child mental health outcomes. These children have the stigma of being orphans in addition the HIV/AIDS stigma. AIDS orphanhood also appears to be associated with many externalizing problems. It is likely that there are multiple risk and resilience factors at play. However, school connectedness is a resilience factor that has received relatively little attention in Orphan and Vulnerable Children literature. The authors test the hypothesis that school connectedness can have a positive impact on HIV/AIDS orphans.