Role of counselling services on parents with children with disabilities in Lusaka, Zambia.
Date
2022-08-05
Authors
Musuka, E. M. Maria
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The University of Zambia
Abstract
Every parent has great dreams and expectations of a healthy, bouncy baby in their marriage.
These dreams are shattered when the baby is born with a disability. There is shock and grief and
this disappointment is harder in Africa where some societies still believe that it is an abomination
and punishment from the gods for something sinful that the family had done. Thus such parents
and their siblings face social stigma, exploitation, and discrimination. The grieving of parents of
children with disabilities is common and universal. Counselling services assist grieving parents
to heal and come to terms with the situation. Counselling helps parents of children with
disabilities to be empowered and understand the human rights, know the channels to seek justice
and stand up to fight in order to enable their children access the social facilities in all dimensions
of life. When the parents are healed and live fulfilled and self actualized lives, then their children
with disabilities will benefit and grow up to live quality lives.
Counselling is not a new concept in Africa; it is as old as Africa itself. The wisdom and
knowledge imparted by elderly men and women on the younger members of the society was part
of continuous guidance and counselling in preparation for the future. Counselling was available
to all at different stages of life. However, there is a contrast as regards counselling parents of
children with disabilities because of the cultural beliefs in Africa. The communal aspect of ‘I am
because you are” “umuntu” is overshadowed and there are negative attitudes towards people
with disabilities. This causes grief and anguish that need counselling services.
The purpose of this study was to find out the role of counselling services, whether there are
institutions that offer counselling services to parents of children with disabilities, do parents of
children with disabilities receive counselling services and how effective these are in Lusaka. The
study sample was 17 parents of children with disabilities. A purposive sampling technique was
utilized due to rich-in-depth information that was to be obtained for the researcher. The
interviews carried out with these parents at Hidden Voice revealed that most of the parents of
persons with disabilities do not have counselling services and face attitudinal barriers that is
behaviours, perceptions and assumptions that discriminate against persons with disabilities
including prejudice, low expectations and even fear within their communities. Negative attitudes
about their children‘s disabilities impact on all aspects of their lives and so need counselling
services and empowerment in order to cope with the situation appropriately.
Finally, recommendations were made to the government, non-governmental organisations and to
the parents of children with disabilities.
Description
Thesis
Keywords
Children with disabilities--Psychology. , Chronically ill children--Family relationships. , Counselling parents of children with disability.