J Swanson-Jacobs: National Association of Child Care Workers

3 July 2007

Thank you for this opportunity to come and address this important gathering
on child and youth care work which is a critical area in the care and
protection of children. In the dawn of our democracy, under the leadership of
President Nelson Mandela South Africa joined other progressive nations by
ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In so doing, the country committed itself to implementing the principles of
"first call for children," where the rights of the children are considered
paramount in the development and review of policies, legislation, programmes
and services.

In the meantime new legislation has been developed and I am glad to say that
we are beginning to see the end of the tunnel. The new Children's Act 38 of
2005 was signed by the President in June 2006, and has now been promulgated by
the President for implementation of certain sections of the Bill as from 1 July
2007. The Children's Amendment Bill is at the finalisation stage in parliament,
with the Portfolio Committee on Social Development. This piece of legislation
has been consulted extensively with various stakeholders within government and
civil society organisations. It is comprehensive, progressive and promotes new
integrated approaches to replace old fragmented practices that do not address
challenges that we are currently faced with, to meet the needs of children.

Ladies and gentleman it is therefore, very important that there is a strong
collaboration and integration of services at implementation level to protect
children from vulnerability and to confront challenges of child abuse, neglect
and exploitation, children living and working on the street, child headed
households, HIV and AIDS, poverty and unemployment. Overall we have to strive
to meet all the basic needs of our children at all levels. Government and
existing child protection organisations need to be strengthened through
adequate resource allocation and skills development to provide quality
services.

The Children's Amendment Bill makes provision for the protection of children
through introducing different levels of intervention which are also linked to
the department's service delivery model.

Ladies and gentleman, prevention is the primary level of intervention. An
early childhood development service is one of the priorities of government
targeted as a prevention measure for children. It has been determined that the
department plays a primary co-ordinating role for children 0 to 4 years old and
after school care programmes in partial care facilities. These facilities must
be registered so that they are regulated by the province. Early Childhood
Development (ECD) services are provided in collaboration with the Departments
of Education and Health. An Integrated ECD Plan called Tshwaragano ka Bana for
children 0 to 4 years old has been developed by the three departments to ensure
well rounded development services from home to centre based care. The ECD
programme is supposed to be holistic and integrated to ensure that children are
given a good head start in life and are better prepared for formal
schooling.

This is to reduce early drop out from school and protect children from
abuse, violence and exploitation. Linked to this is the Expanded Public Works
Programme (EPWP) as one of government's short to medium term poverty
alleviation programmes with a focus on Early Childhood Development, which
targets unemployed parents and care givers for training as practitioners in all
ECD programmes. This is to create jobs, with a career path and reduce
unemployment in the long term whilst improving the quality of services. The
intention of government is to provide wide coverage of services for children
between 0 to pre-school age by registering and subsidising more sites
especially in under resourced and under serviced, disadvantaged areas.

Prevention is also aimed at strengthening and building capacity of families,
by providing public education and awareness campaigns, strengthen
community-based responses and family preservation programmes.

Furthermore, there are programmes such as Isolabantwana (Eye on the Child)
which trains volunteers to look out for vulnerable children in the community.
These volunteers are known in the community and they identify children and
families who are at risk. They have to intervene on behalf of the child to
provide care and protection for 24 hours whilst waiting for professional
intervention by social workers.

The next level is early detection and intervention. Services delivered at
this level make use of developmental and therapeutic programmes to ensure
children who have been identified as being at risk are assisted before they
require statutory services which is more intensive. Associated with the child
and youth care workers are the Isibindi Model and the Safe Park project.

The recognition of the importance of prevention and early intervention
services is very critical because the problems can be nipped in the bud,
resulting in children staying with their families, within their own communities
and secondly it saves state resources which can be used to enhance service
delivery to children.

Ladies and gentleman this is the first time that prevention and early
intervention services are legislated for and that norms and standards for such
programmes are to be put in place. It is also for the first time that
legislation makes provision for social service professionals such as child and
youth care workers, social workers, auxiliary social workers and community
development workers to deliver prevention and early intervention services as a
team.

South Africa has one of the highest prevalence rates of HIV and AIDS in the
world. The high death rate of parents has increased the percentage of children
who are orphaned from approximately 2,5% to about 20%, which can no longer be
absorbed by the extended family as was the traditional practice. This has
resulted in many households headed by children without adult supervision.
Currently, the number of orphans is estimated to be one and a half million due
to the death of a mother or both parents.

Although the prevalence rate is expected to plateau and the death rate
should begin to decline with the national roll out of antiretroviral therapy,
the numbers of children who are already affected is large and it is projected
that it will continue to grow until 2017.

At this level statutory intervention has to take place. A large number of
children have to be placed in alternative care although a large proportion of
children who need foster care are taken care of by relatives, called kinship
care. There is pressure from different quarters to use less intensive
mechanisms to deal with their foster care placements. However, children in
kinship care also need supervision services as the majority of these placements
need support and some do break down.

The challenge is that only a fraction of these children are presently
receiving foster care services from the Department of Social Development.
Currently there are more than 400 186 foster children in 272 380 foster care
placements. These children require alternative care until they reach the legal
age of majority or can live independently.

When children cannot be placed in foster care or adopted they are put in
child and youth care centres. In the Amendment Bill this includes for the first
time traditional shelters which rendered services to children living and or
working and begging on the street.

There are currently 243 government and non-government organisation (NGO) run
children's homes nationally, with a capacity of approximately 14 000 beds. The
costing report for the Children's Amendment Bill indicated that the present
demand is projected as 155 000. There is clearly a huge shortfall of bed
capacity in child and youth care centres.

Some orphaned children have been in child and youth care centres for far too
long and have lost contact with their extended families, culture, and
community. Whilst it is important for children to be provided with the most
effective therapeutic programmes in child and youth care centres, we have to
ensure that they do not remain in child and youth care centre for longer than
necessary. Therefore, it is important to improve our service delivery models to
re-unify children with their families in the shortest possible time, or place
those who cannot be successfully re-united with their biological families in
other alternative placements e.g. foster care or adoption which will provide a
sense of stability and permanency especially adoption. It is also important to
provide good aftercare services to assist young people to reintegrate back into
society.

The Department of Social Development in collaboration with National
Association of Child Care Workers (NACCW) and other service providers developed
a Manual on Family Preservation Services which contain a chapter on
re-unifications and aftercare, to reintegrate children with their families.
Social workers and child and youth care workers will benefit from this training
to provide the most effective services to children and their families.

We cannot mention children in child and youth care centres without
recognising the important role the child and youth care workers play in the
lives of children at risk. Child and youth care workers have a strategic role
in the child and youth care system. They are most importantly the caregivers
(assuming the role of the parents), listeners and supporters to the children
and not only in child and youth care centres, but also in programmes developed
for children living and working on the streets and other programmes. Child and
youth care workers should be acknowledged and commended for their work with
children in difficult circumstances including the quality of their professional
responses to children.

In conclusion government acknowledges the role of civil society
organisations like the NACCW in providing services to children and the Minister
and I are advocating for adequate resource allocation. Collaboration, sharing
of best practices, streamlining and integration of services whilst
strengthening community initiatives to care and protect children are the keys
to reducing numbers of children who end up as victims in the child protection
system. Government has been structured to do this through clusters and the
department has several structures that are inter-sectoral that include civil
society organisations.

Much more needs to be done to spread programmes like "Eye on the Child"
within communities. Increasingly children are the victims of relatives and
family friends and too many children have had their innocence and their lives
nipped in the bud. In this respect, my sympathy goes out to the many families
of the children in our country and worldwide who have fallen victim to
paedophiles. In the best interest of children we should take a zero tolerance
stand against child pornography and trafficking, and all professionals working
with children should be trained about tell-tale signs, indicating that children
may be in danger.

I thank you.

Issued by: Department of Social Development
3 July 2007