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10-21-2004, 06:48 AM
http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=327&fArticleId=2269399
With nothing but red tape to hold them
October 21, 2004
By Anso Thom
In their young lives, they have already faced the tragedy of losing both their
parents. And now, with no-one to love them, many are falling through the cracks
as those tasked with taking care of them don't even know how many of them there
are.
By mid-year, according to the Actuarial Association of South Africa, there were
250 000 orphans in this country. But government departments whose job it is to
care for them could not confirm the actual numbers in children's homes.
And while one might imagine that there are thousands of orphaned or abandoned
children waiting to be adopted, few are currently being placed. Instead,
bureaucratic bungling and red tape are keeping these vulnerable children in
institutions - in their crucial formative years.
A Human Sciences Research Council report released last year highlights the
problems: "A large proportion of children who are currently in foster and
residential care, especially those under 3 years of age, should in fact be in
adoption."
These children are not adopted or fostered due to a combination of factors,
including a shortage of prospective parents willing to take in black children,
an ignorance of provisions in the Child Care Act which could facilitate
adoption, poor social work practice, an overload of the social work services
and a lack of state financial support for the adoption of children with special
needs.
The report also highlights the need to target abandoned babies specifically for
adoption as they make up a small but important minority.
To gain a clearer picture of where these children are being let down, it is
critical for authorities to know just how many of them are in residential care
(orphanages and shelters) and homes. But no one wants to release these figures.
"I have them," a director in the Department of Social Development says. "But I
can't give them to you as the provinces disputed my figures at a recent
meeting."
Kgati Sathekge, spokesperson for Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya, is
more blunt: "We don't know."
And a senior manager in the Department of Social Welfare says: "There are many,
many children in the system we don't know of."
At the time of going to press, only two provinces had responded to a request
for information. Mpumalanga has 693 children in residential care; the Western
Cape has 2 209.
Department of Social Development statistics indicate that 2 338 children were
adopted in 2000 compared to 2 320 in 2003. Only 369 of these were classified as
abandoned. Yet figures from 169 affiliates of the SA National Council for Child
Welfare, a non-governmental organisation, indicate that during 2003 there were
already 1 803 abandoned children on their caseload. A staggering 6 356 children
were added to this in the same year. This translates into about 8 000 abandoned
children on the books, and this excludes the thousands in other homes and
shelters not affiliated to the council. So what became of all the abandoned
children?
They could be anywhere in the system - from a registered children's home with
loving, trained caregivers to informal, unregistered homes where no social
worker ever visits.
Under present legislation, foster families include people who offer a home to a
child in need who is not related to them or people who are related to the child
and who care for him or her because the biological parents are unable to do so.
Experts agree that a lack of urgency seems to dog the process. This and other
hurdles such as an unmanageable bureaucracy, a shortage of social workers, a
lack of long-term planning and a huge workload have led to many children being
left languishing in orphanages and shelters.
A report by the University of Cape Town's Children's Institute warns that "the
quality of care given to children in residential facilities is often
sub-standard."
Lynette Schreuder of the SA National Council for Child Welfare confirms that
human and financial resources are limited and that there are not nearly enough
social workers to deal with the overwhelming number of children.
Last year, the 13 children's homes affiliated to the council cared for 3 805
children, 23 places of safety catered for 1 727 and 10 shelters offered a home
to 2 425 children.
According to Jackie Loffell of the Johannesburg Child Welfare Society, "the
problem is that there are children all over the country in children's homes,
hospitals, places of safety and short-term foster families who would be
eligible for adoption but there is no one place where this information comes
together, even for children whose parents are deceased, or whose parents have
consented to their adoption."
Discussions around the creation of a central register for these children and
prospective adoptive parents have been initiated but such a record is a still
long way away from becoming a reality.
Penny Whitaker of the Cape Town Child Welfare Society agrees that the need for
a central database is desperate.
Her organisation is the largest adoption agency in the Western Cape but, last
year, it finalised only 26 adoptions, all from birth mothers who had opted to
give up their children. The organisation does not actively seek to place
abandoned or older children.
The society currently has 50 parents on a waiting list and only one child
eligible for adoption.
Government statistics reveal that of the 2 320 children adopted last year, 371
were cross-cultural and 224 were by parents outside the country's borders.
More than half were processed in Gauteng courts, where the majority were
adopted by biological fathers, step-parents or relatives.
White babies still constitute the largest group who are adopted but Loffell
attributes this to the common practice of step-parents' adopting their
partners' children and says the number of black families who are willing to
adopt is growing.
There is no doubt that keeping track of the many children being left homeless
and parentless is critical.
Everyone agrees the system needs to be streamlined, that children need to be
placed on a central register, that adoption needs to be promoted and that
social workers should be more proactive in screening prospective adoptive
parents.
But if the national department does not even know how many children are in
residential care, what does that mean for these thousands of children, hoping
for a better life? - www.health-e.org.za
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
With nothing but red tape to hold them
October 21, 2004
By Anso Thom
In their young lives, they have already faced the tragedy of losing both their
parents. And now, with no-one to love them, many are falling through the cracks
as those tasked with taking care of them don't even know how many of them there
are.
By mid-year, according to the Actuarial Association of South Africa, there were
250 000 orphans in this country. But government departments whose job it is to
care for them could not confirm the actual numbers in children's homes.
And while one might imagine that there are thousands of orphaned or abandoned
children waiting to be adopted, few are currently being placed. Instead,
bureaucratic bungling and red tape are keeping these vulnerable children in
institutions - in their crucial formative years.
A Human Sciences Research Council report released last year highlights the
problems: "A large proportion of children who are currently in foster and
residential care, especially those under 3 years of age, should in fact be in
adoption."
These children are not adopted or fostered due to a combination of factors,
including a shortage of prospective parents willing to take in black children,
an ignorance of provisions in the Child Care Act which could facilitate
adoption, poor social work practice, an overload of the social work services
and a lack of state financial support for the adoption of children with special
needs.
The report also highlights the need to target abandoned babies specifically for
adoption as they make up a small but important minority.
To gain a clearer picture of where these children are being let down, it is
critical for authorities to know just how many of them are in residential care
(orphanages and shelters) and homes. But no one wants to release these figures.
"I have them," a director in the Department of Social Development says. "But I
can't give them to you as the provinces disputed my figures at a recent
meeting."
Kgati Sathekge, spokesperson for Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya, is
more blunt: "We don't know."
And a senior manager in the Department of Social Welfare says: "There are many,
many children in the system we don't know of."
At the time of going to press, only two provinces had responded to a request
for information. Mpumalanga has 693 children in residential care; the Western
Cape has 2 209.
Department of Social Development statistics indicate that 2 338 children were
adopted in 2000 compared to 2 320 in 2003. Only 369 of these were classified as
abandoned. Yet figures from 169 affiliates of the SA National Council for Child
Welfare, a non-governmental organisation, indicate that during 2003 there were
already 1 803 abandoned children on their caseload. A staggering 6 356 children
were added to this in the same year. This translates into about 8 000 abandoned
children on the books, and this excludes the thousands in other homes and
shelters not affiliated to the council. So what became of all the abandoned
children?
They could be anywhere in the system - from a registered children's home with
loving, trained caregivers to informal, unregistered homes where no social
worker ever visits.
Under present legislation, foster families include people who offer a home to a
child in need who is not related to them or people who are related to the child
and who care for him or her because the biological parents are unable to do so.
Experts agree that a lack of urgency seems to dog the process. This and other
hurdles such as an unmanageable bureaucracy, a shortage of social workers, a
lack of long-term planning and a huge workload have led to many children being
left languishing in orphanages and shelters.
A report by the University of Cape Town's Children's Institute warns that "the
quality of care given to children in residential facilities is often
sub-standard."
Lynette Schreuder of the SA National Council for Child Welfare confirms that
human and financial resources are limited and that there are not nearly enough
social workers to deal with the overwhelming number of children.
Last year, the 13 children's homes affiliated to the council cared for 3 805
children, 23 places of safety catered for 1 727 and 10 shelters offered a home
to 2 425 children.
According to Jackie Loffell of the Johannesburg Child Welfare Society, "the
problem is that there are children all over the country in children's homes,
hospitals, places of safety and short-term foster families who would be
eligible for adoption but there is no one place where this information comes
together, even for children whose parents are deceased, or whose parents have
consented to their adoption."
Discussions around the creation of a central register for these children and
prospective adoptive parents have been initiated but such a record is a still
long way away from becoming a reality.
Penny Whitaker of the Cape Town Child Welfare Society agrees that the need for
a central database is desperate.
Her organisation is the largest adoption agency in the Western Cape but, last
year, it finalised only 26 adoptions, all from birth mothers who had opted to
give up their children. The organisation does not actively seek to place
abandoned or older children.
The society currently has 50 parents on a waiting list and only one child
eligible for adoption.
Government statistics reveal that of the 2 320 children adopted last year, 371
were cross-cultural and 224 were by parents outside the country's borders.
More than half were processed in Gauteng courts, where the majority were
adopted by biological fathers, step-parents or relatives.
White babies still constitute the largest group who are adopted but Loffell
attributes this to the common practice of step-parents' adopting their
partners' children and says the number of black families who are willing to
adopt is growing.
There is no doubt that keeping track of the many children being left homeless
and parentless is critical.
Everyone agrees the system needs to be streamlined, that children need to be
placed on a central register, that adoption needs to be promoted and that
social workers should be more proactive in screening prospective adoptive
parents.
But if the national department does not even know how many children are in
residential care, what does that mean for these thousands of children, hoping
for a better life? - www.health-e.org.za
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
