- The aim of the Project is to
protect children from maltreatment, neglect, physical
or mental harm, including sexual abuse or exploitation,
and afford young victims of abuse and neglect the
opportunity to recover within a nurturing, healing
environment and to reconstruct their lives.
- All incidents of alleged or
actual child neglect, abandonment and abuse are investigated
and the required action taken to protect children
from further harm.
- Such action may include intensive
therapeutic family intervention, counseling, enabling
psycho-social support or the removal of the child
from his/her family to a place of safety, while attempts
are made to prepare the family for the return of the
child.
- All allegations or reports of
child neglect, abuse and abandonment need to be validated
before further action can be taken.
- This involves the careful investigation
and assessment, by skilled social workers, of each
reported incident.
- Investigations commence within
hours of a complaint being received.
- When a child's family or caregiver
has not provided the nurturing, supportive and protective
environment, which is the right of every child, social
workers must make vital decisions about how best to
protect the child from further harm.
- These difficult decisions, with
far-reaching implications for both the child and his/her
family, are based on extensive information which is
gathered about the circumstances and all involved
parties.
|
- A child whose life or
health is threatened necessitates intervention to
ensure that he/she is protected.
- Careful consideration is given
to the course of action to be followed.
- High-risk incidence, implying
a substantial threat to the child's life or health,
results in the removal of the child from the family
to a place of safety.
- Cases of child abuse and neglect
requiring intensive and long-term intervention are
referred to Isolobantwana staff and volunteers who
provide preventative and developmental support services
to the families concerned.
- Staff and community volunteers
monitor the family carefully and work closely with
the young victim and family members to overcome the
problems and strengthen the family unit.
- They liaise closely with and
involve other health resources and medical personnel
in treatment programmes.
- In addition to marriage
and relationship counseling, programmes promoting
basic health care and good parenting skills are also
provided.
|
- Children who have been abandoned
or removed from their families are placed in suitable,
nurturing places of safety on a temporary, emergency
basis while plans are put in place to re-unite the
child and his/her family of origin, should this be
possible, or while alternative arrangements for the
long-term care of these children are made.
- Children are then either
returned to their families, placed with other caregivers
such as foster parents, or in one of the organisation's
residential care centers, on a temporary basis.
|
- Community volunteers are currently
being recruited and trained to perform a number of
tasks that have traditionally been the responsibility
of social workers involved in child protection work.
- These include:
- The gathering of information as part of the investigation
process
- Tracing extended family
- Mother-Child support services
- Emergency Homes
- Visiting sick children
|
| |
Community Emergency Homes |
- This Project, a crucial
component of the organisation's child protection services,
is based on our philosophy that the community should
be active participants in the care and protection
of vulnerable children.
- At present 13 community
emergency homes situated in the suburbs and townships
throughout the Cape Peninsula are operational.
- It is, however, the intention
of the organisation to establish an additional seven
community-based family care facilities within the
next six months.
- The ongoing identification,
recruitment, screening and training of community members,
as well as the community's commitment to the care
and protection of vulnerable children, will facilitate
this process.
- Emergency Care is substitute
care in a family setting, provided to children whose
parents are unable to care for them due to a variety
of reasons.
- It is intended to be of
a temporary nature and can last for a relatively short
period of time or for lengthy periods depending on
the time it takes for the social worker to complete
the investigation.
- The ultimate purpose of
emergency care is to care for a child, until return
of the child to his/her family of origin, or alternate
care can be found.
- This is a statutory placement,
which means that the child is placed by the Commissioner
of the Children's Court, in terms of the Child Care
Act.
- This type of care is not
foster care or adoption.
- People who have undergone
screening as emergency parents; are financially stable;
can offer a secure and stable home with love and nurturing;
and who are open the fact that these children will
eventually be returned to their parent's care or be
placed for foster care or adoption, can become emergency
parents.
- The advantages of being
Emergency Parents, is the chance of giving a child
security and loving care, which some children have
never known.
- Emergency parents are
responsible for the physical, emotional, educational
and social care of the child.
- It is also expected of
emergency parents to give their full co-operation
to the supervising social worker, the co-ordinator
of the project and the agency represented by these
persons.
- The success of this child
care project relies entirely on community participation
and ordinary families who open their hearts and homes
to take in and care for children on an emergency,
interim basis.
- Placing children in the
care of trained community emergency caregivers is
a far healthier, desirable and economically viable
alternative to placing them in institutions.
- Infants and children placed
in emergency care are given specialized attention
and the chance to recover within a nurturing, family
environment while Cape Town Child Welfare's
staff make alternative arrangements for the long-term
care of these children.
|
|
| |
|
|
