Research was undertaken to determine the needs of adolescents and their experience of the death of their parents due to AIDS. AIDS is a still growing pandemic that is eliminatingthousands of lives in South Africa, whilst influencing the lives of relatives in a dramatic manner. Adolescents, in this particular unique stage of life, suffer most from the consequences of this disease. It is of special significance to adolescents when one or both of their parents die due lo AIDS-related causes. Adolescents have unique physical and emo1ional needs and when a parent or parents die, a vacuum is created in the fulfillment of their needs. In this study, some guidelines for an intervention programme, for adolescents who lost a parent or both parents due to AIDS, are suggested in order to empower adolescents to cope with the situation and to deal with the losses that they have to deal wilh. Community-based care and /he buddy system are but two current social work programmes that can partly be incorporated into this specific programme
