Can you give examples of counselling support for children?

Taking the example of a child of 9 years, that suffered from post violence, and her mother died of mental illness, at 3 years. When her mother died no one could care for her, she was brought to police, so they looked for a women representative with three years old, up to now she is still with that woman. When I was once with that family, one of the nights, the child dreamed that she got approached by the mother, to go with mother. The caretaker did not believe the dream, said that she should not dream that, and got angry at the child. I talked with the family and said that is well possible that a child has such dreams, to process all what it has experienced, I gave my best to protect this child. When talking with the family, I got to know that the father or family members still are close to the border of South Sudan, so the little one wanted to go to father. The child was mistreated, she had to sleep at the floor, whereas the other children were on beds, this is really hard. I am still doing the follow up on these child. Also children face these mental problems due to such circumstances. Especially the ones that are not with their real parents.

Example from a child of 11 years: the father was mentally sick and the mother died of HIV/AIDS, so the child lived with her aunty. But when I went to this aunty no one was there, the child broke down in tears, due to the lots of burden this child had in its life, when everyone else was absent, it had to clean and cook. It couldn’t reach her sisters, are at another place, can’t afford to find them, so also children feel psychosocial instabilities, same problems, so we have to make sure that they can coping positively, as we continue following.

How has COVID-19 generally affected your clients' lives?

There are many challenges, it’s a very tough time, with lots of restrictions, increase of psychosocial problems within the community, but life has to go on somehow. It has been a difficult time but however, we have been trying to help.

Most difficult is, that families are getting separated, lockdown has made things to stand still, businesses are no longer there, so people get mentally abused, alcohol is a challenge, also activities are not as before, the younger go into early marriages, all these things are happening, this is the negative part of COVID-19 here.