Social Development Approaches in Rehabilitating Child Law Breakers in Kenya: A Case of Kirigiti Girls’ Rehabilitation School in Kiambu County

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an investigation of how social development approaches have been utilised in rehabilitating child law breakers in Kenya in relation to their ability to develop life coping mechanism. Information for the study came from 3^rd year beneficiary experiences at the Kirigiti Girls rehabilitation school in Kiambu county Kenya. The paper is anchored on social development theory by Erickson. Kirigiti girls’ rehabilitation centre receives girls’ child law breakers from all counties across the country for rehabilitation who are released after three years. The respondents for this study consisted of 55 beneficiaries in the 3^rd year of rehabilitation, 5 Staff of Kirigiti girls, 3 Staff of NGOs implementing at Kirigiti girls, 4 Children’s department field Officers, 2 Staff of National Council for Children’s Services, 2 Probation Officers and 2 Police Officers. Data was collected through interviews and survey questionnaire. Research results showed that 76.4% of girls preferred being involved in co-curricular activities like participating in games and other sports. Correlation results showed that there existed a significant positive effect (r=0.304 and =0.024) between social development approaches used at Kirigiti for rehabilitated girls and their development of life coping mechanism. The study recommended that the rehabilitation centre should continuously motivate and encourage the girls to participate in an array of social activities like playing indoor and outdoor games, involved in social clubs to boost their life coping mechanisms and prevent chances of them being rejected by their families at the end of the rehabilitation period or dropping out of formal education.

Keywords: Social Development, Approaches, Rehabilitation