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The case of the six year old foster child who was recently discovered in chains in the Osizweni township of Newcastle in KwaZulu-Natal, as was reported in the Mercury, certainly warrants investigation by authorities, and is an illustration of the sorts of problems that occur when the social welfare system fails those who need it most.

We would like to see an investigation into why social services did not act sooner to remove the child from foster care after he seemingly suffered systematic abuse at the hands of his foster mother. Community members reportedly claim that this was not the first time the woman locked up the boy in this fashion and that he was also kept out of school.

Regular visits by a social worker may well have prevented the situation from re-occurring. Social workers and the organisations lending support to the social welfare system are tasked with a central role in protecting the lives of the most vulnerable members of our society and services must be run competently and efficiently. Any deviation from this standard is a betrayal of those most in need. In this regard our system often falls far short.

Part of the reason why the system fails our children is because social workers are overworked, and there are also not enough of them to ensure that orphans and foster children receive the proper care and to conduct follow up visits. More also needs to be done to reduce the amount of administration social workers have to deal with - keeping them desk-bound rather than being out in the field checking the circumstances of children.

A costing exercise for the Children's Act revealed that, if the legislation were to be properly implemented, there would be a huge shortfall in the number of social workers required. We still only have around 5,600 social workers but research shows that South Africa currently needs around 66,300 social workers employed by the Department of Social Development and by non-profit organisations for 2010/11.

The DA will be posing parliamentary questions shortly to establish:

1. What measures are being implemented to increase the number of social workers and reduce their workload?
2. What the Department of Social Development is doing to improve systems to monitor and manage caseloads to ensure they remain within acceptable limits and that children receive care through foster and adoptive parents.