A Study of Shelters for Street Children from an Organizational ...

programs to communities and families at risk. It could be argued that, in designing
shelter intervention and re-integration strategies, there is a need to bring in children's
perceptions and feelings together with those of the parents. Re-designed re-integration
programs would include families and communities involvement and participation to
address issues of poverty, diseases and human interpersonal relationships which
impacts negatively on many families and communities from where majority of children
come.
5.7 Views and Experiences of Managers, Staff and children
The focus of this study was on the shelters as organizations designed to intervene in
the lives of children living and/or working on the streets, the experiences of managers,
staff the service providers and children the service recipients. The following discussion
is on those views and experiences.
5.7.1 Managers
The views and experiences of managers were the same with regard to the overall
objectives of shelter's interventions and service delivery. Their views and experiences
varied slightly depending on individual personality, working environment, staff, and the
residents of shelters. They faced common problems of attending and reporting in
regular meetings, lack of adequate finances, staff complaints, management and
administrative problems and resident's complaints against staff and children etc. Their
major concerns were the implementation of shelters programs and delivery of services.
The manager of the first phase shelter due to several factors derived from the numbers
of residents who constantly changed, more staff, had additional problems because as
first phase shelter, was the sorting out place of children, their needs and multiple
problems before they were channelled to other second phase shelters. Managerial
personalities changed several times in the course of the study due to the challenges
they faced in the shelter. However, managers shared a view that despite
managerial/administrative difficulties, intervention programs were necessary because
children were living and/or working on the streets and they were not supposed to
therefore shelters acted to:
• remove children from the streets and address their plight by
• meeting their basic needs
• reducing harm that might have been caused physically, mentally and
emotionally
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