Formative evaluation of Helderberg Association for persons with disabilities

Abstract

Purpose The peer support programme as run by Helderberg Association for Persons with Disabilities (HAPD) uses people who have disabilities to support people with disabilities in their own community. The purpose of this formative evaluation is to explore the roles and responsibilities of peer supporters and the needs in the community. This evaluation would help HAPD explore which areas of the peer support programme could be improved. The evaluation explored the relationship between addressable and non-addressable needs, the types of disabilities and the needs identified of the people with disabilities. Exploring these relationships would allow HAPD to understand which needs they are more likely to address and which areas they could improve their support in.

Problem In South Africa, community-based rehabilitation has been evaluated but there are no evaluations that focus on the roles and responsibilities of peer supporters and the relationship between the needs that are addressed. HAPD employs and assists in the training of local people with disabilities to support people within their own community, drawing from the resources already in the community. If the peer supporters’ roles and responsibilities are not well-defined to address the needs of the community, the programme would fail. The needs of the community need to be identified to understand the community and possibly addressed the needs by providing emotional support, information, and referring cases to other service providers in the community. The evaluation explores the types of disabilities identified, the needs of the people with disabilities in the community, as well as the number of needs addressed. This information would allow HAPD to have a better understanding of the variety of home visitations the peer supporter could face and would need to provide support in.

Methods The evaluation used a descriptive research design, which mainly used quantitative methods to evaluate the programme. The evaluator used some qualitative methods to enhance the understanding of the programme, these methods include a focus group with peer supporters, collecting and analysing programme documents, and interviewing the chief operating officer. The evaluator explored the relationships between the types of disabilities and the needs that were identified in home visitations. The disability categories were: physical, sensory, intellectual, and psychiatric disabilities. The needs categories as grouped by HAPD were: Health & Wellness and Education & Employment and Transport & Housing and Family & Social needs.

Results There were 608 usable entries for home visitations; 43% had more than one home visitation, 79% had a physical disability and 39% of the needs were related to Health & Wellness, and 73% of the needs were addressable. There was a significant relationship between having an addressable need and the type of need category identified but no relationship between disability categories. Education & Employment needs and Health & Wellness needs were more likely to be addressed than any other need. Needs related to Transport & Housing and Social & Family issues were not as likely to be addressed.

Conclusion The formative evaluation of HAPD has found that the roles and responsibilities are well-defined if implemented with the WCAPD. There is a need to increase the training in counselling topics and to provide counselling to the peer supporters. The importance of creating of referral network based from an asset-based community development perspective was also recommended as it provides tangible and valuable information on the capacities, skills and services available in the community. The evaluation also highlighted some areas of improvement regarding the record keeping of training material, improvement of data collection, follow-up of home visitations, and clearer categorising of needs and disabilities. HAPD can consider evaluating the mechanism of support the peer supporters provide to the community and how the associate organisations form part of this process.