Speech by the Deputy Minister of Social Development during the Biennial conference, Durban, Durban University of Technology, Steve Biko Campus

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