Psychosocial Conditions and Resilience Status of Street Children in Jimma Town

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Traditional research and practices focused on aninvestigation of risk factors to handle psychosocial problems streetchildren faced while surviving on the street. However, morerecently, attention has been given to how knowledge can bedeveloped in the area to devise interventions that reflect thepromotion of resilience as a means of achieving positive outcomesfor the children. The purpose of this study was to explore thepsychosocial conditions and resilience status of street children inJimma Town.

METHODS: Explanatory sequential research design wasemployed. Out of 246 teenager street children, 137 were selectedusing simple random sampling. Questionnaire, interview guide andFGD probes were used in data collection. Mean and standarddeviation, multiple regression analysis and Man Whitney U T-testwere used to analyze quantitative data; while discourse analysis wasused to analyze qualitative data.

RESULTS: The result of multiple regression analysis indicated thatanxiety significantly predicted resilience status, b=.623, t (109)=8.418, p˂.001. Anxiety also explained a significant proportion ofthe variance in resilience status, R 2 =.388, F (112) = 70.86, p ˂.001.Further, the result revealed that street children had slow growingresilience status in which boys were more resilient than girls.

CONCLUSION: Street children in Jimma Town faced variouspsychosocial challenges and had low resilience status. Thus,Jimma Town Women and Children Affairs Office ought to work tobuild resilience status of street children, in collaboration withdifferent stakeholders in and around the town.