Vulnerability and Agency in the Time of COVID-19: The Narratives of Child and Youth Care Workers in South Africa.

In this paper, we use data generated through one-on-one interviews with 12 purposively sampled Child and Youth Care Workers to examine their narratives of work and life-related vulnerabilities and agency during the peak of the COVID-19 global pandemic in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Our findings show that Child and Youth Care Workers were vulnerable to poor mental health. Indeed, working and socialising during the height of COVID-19 posed a mental toll on the Child and Youth Care Workers in this study, who experienced fear, uncertainty, anxiety and stress.