| Summary: | The South African population is highly populated by single mothered families. Fatherlessness has emerged as one of the greatest social problems, especially as children who grow up in families with absent-fathers suffer lasting damage. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of fathers’ imprisonment on the functioning of the family and social work interventions to mitigate the effect. The study used mixed method research design. Data was collected through the use of questionnaires and in-depth interviews. This study employed three sampling strategies; namely multi-stage sampling and purposive sampling as well as snow-ball sampling. The sample was made up of 65 members of families whose father is in prison or had been to prision and 15 social work officials. Qalitative data was analyised using themes and parrtens that emerged during interviews with participants, quantitative data was analysed using SPSS computer softerwere. Findings revealed that father’s imprisonment has negative impact that causes dysfunctional families. The negative effect is due to the loss of a father figure and a provider of the family. Inequality and stigmatisation among family members were also found to cause dysfunctional families after the father’s imprisonment. Findings from social work officials revealed social service interventions to mollify the family dysfunctions. However, majority of families are provided services through offender re-integration, others lack unawareness regarding social work interventions for families with fathers in prison. Findings further reveal that resources are limited to enhance the provision of adequate and better psychosocial support for affected families in order to alleviate the undesirable impact of father’s imprisonment. There is therefore a compelling need for implementing policies that will enable dysfunctional families with fathers imprison to access adequate psychosocial support services. The study also recommended that, social welfare system should be strengthened by embarking on enlightenment programmes that create awareness about family based interventions for dysfunction families with fathers in prison.
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