Care leavers’ experiences of COVID-19 in Uganda and Ghana: Implications for their mental health and psychosocial wellbeing

In Ghana and Uganda, many young people are increasingly leaving residential care to live independently in the wider society. In many countries, these young people who leave care, often referred to as care leavers, are a marginalized and excluded group. Given the devastating effect COVID-19 has on vulnerable groups, we conducted in-depth interviews with 12 care leavers to understand their experiences of COVID-19 and how it is affecting their psychosocial wellbeing. We also explored their coping mechanisms. The results show that their main challenges include the loss of livelihoods and finances, reduction to social networks/social support, and fear and sustained worry. They are coping through seeking support from their peers, borrowing money from friends with expectation to pay debts in the future, reducing spending by cutting on number of meals. They indicated that access to mental health and psychosocial support is very limited and, most times, nonexistent. Most of them had not benefited from social assistance from the state or nongovernment organizations. Overall COVID-19 has put a strain on livelihood sources and this has contributed to psychosocial challenges. However, there are signs of resilience, particularly to review expenditure patterns and seeking peer support. There is a need for care to prioritize care leavers in providing mental health and psychosocial support services to further build their resilience to cope with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.