Children of a lesser god? Orphans, Vulnerable Children (OVCs) and poverty in Zambia: implications for social work practice

Abstract

This paper attempts to present a conceptual linkage between a model of intervention of social protection and community practice model specifically locality development in terms of planning, organizing, decision making, poverty reduction and participation as elaborated by Stockdale (2014). The discussion seeks to make clear and strengthen the intervention and integrate the theory and practice in order to render problem solving process scientific so as to avoid several pitfalls of the past in serving the orphans and other vulnerable children. In fact, the adoption of theory to practice will tend to clarify the roles, functions and duties of professionals and other stakeholders so as to make clear role differentiation, and avoid role conflicts and duplications of efforts and thereby focusing on the intervention.

Keywords: children, vulnerability, orphans, poverty, social work, social protection and AIDS