Seeds of Transformation in South African Child Welfare
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Résumé
This article attempts to explore how child welfare has shifted since apartheid and how it is (or not) responding to the needs of vulnerable children and their families in South Africa. South Africa introduced an extremely progressive Developmental Social Welfare approach in 1996. Child welfare in particular has struggled to transform itself to this more family-centred, community-based approach. In part this is connected to enormous resource constraints and the crisis of poverty, crime and AIDS. However, the core assumptions of a child protection model, heavily imbued by Anglo-American, ‘first world’ perspectives constrain practice from becoming more relevant to the needs of the majority of South Africans.
Texte intégral
1Children continue to be among the most vulnerable members of society. In repressive situations, children bear the greatest impact of the oppression and violence. This was no less so for children under apartheid. Theoretically, child welfare mechanisms exist with the intent of ensuring that adequate familial and societal supports are in place to promote children’s well being. In South Africa, however, the child welfare sector, along with other welfare institutions–in contrast to its expressed mandate–both intentionally and unintentionally reinforced discriminatory practices and policies, thus fundamentally undermining the structures intended to nurture children. In addition, the individualistic, expert-driven character of the child welfare services had minimal impact in a context of mass poverty.
2The advent of a ‘new South Africa’ brought with it hope and opportunity. In the welfare field, there were visions of a well-resourced, responsive system–not least in child welfare. However, child welfare today is in crisis: both the governmental and private sectors are dealing with massive human resource shortages; the system is overwhelmed by requests for service with which it cannot deal adequately; and children are suffering as victims of secondary abuse.1 What has happened to the dream for transformation? Is all lost, or does a glimmer of hope remain? What needs to be done to facilitate transformation and to strengthen positive shifts that have nevertheless occurred?
3This article attempts to answer these questions by reviewing child welfare under apartheid and identifying both positive and negative movements that have taken place since 1994. I argue that for substantive healing and change to occur the child welfare system needs both to be resourced, and to shift away from an individualistic, remedial, punitive child protection model to one which is inclusive, collaborative and focused on prevention.
4I became interested in these issues as a South African social worker living in Canada. Being outside of my homeland and practicing within the child welfare field in a ‘first world’2 country has allowed me a certain perspective on the functioning of child welfare systems that previously was unavailable to me. While this position affords me particular insights, I recognize also that I am more likely to be identified as a foreigner the longer I live in Canada and that my ability to appreciate the South African reality is increasingly constrained. I thus offer these views with humility. My PhD thesis will be a genealogy of child welfare in South Africa, utilizing a Foucauldian lens3 to appreciate what continuities and discontinuities exist in the local child welfare discourse. This article in part draws on my preliminary findings based on governmental (national and provincial) and agency policy documents that I gathered in the first quarter of 2007.
5It is tempting to convey a picture of South Africa under apartheid that conforms to polarities and extremes. While society was clearly divided, the reality nevertheless was textured and multilayered. I will attempt to communicate some of this complexity though this is challenging when offering only a brief sketch of the child welfare history.
6The horrors of apartheid are well known. Communities that were under-resourced and under-serviced struggled to provide the basic necessities for children. Many Black4 children died at a young age and those that survived were frequently malnourished and ill. A lack of housing, of health services, and of schools meant that children were deprived at the most rudimentary level.5 These negative impacts for children were heightened by the fact that for many their parents were absent due to the policy of separate development and the concomitant migratory labour system.6 Most White children though had their fundamental needs met, providing them a basis that was qualitatively different to the majority of their Black peers. Fraser-Moleketi, in discussing the need for transformation in child welfare, summarized the impact of apartheid on children and families as deeply traumatic.7 One would expect that the child welfare sector would have actively responded to this crisis for children and families. While the work done by individual child welfare agencies cannot be dismissed as meaningless, child welfare as a sector– as evidenced in the Truth and Reconciliation Welfare Submission (1999)–never fundamentally challenged apartheid and how it was affecting children and their networks.
7This can in part be understood by recognizing the colonial foundations of child welfare and the constraints imposed on the sector by the apartheid regime. The history of the child welfare system is rooted in colonialism. Various internal child welfare documents reflect that the ‘Meesters en Diensboden’ (Masters and Servants) Act passed in 1856 in Cape Town was the first legislation in the South African colonies that included any provisions pertaining to children. It allowed for neglected children to be placed with ‘suitable’ families in the community. In 1895, ‘Die Wet op Verlate Vroue en Kinderbeskerming’ (The Deserted Women and Child Protection Act) was passed, obligating fathers to be financially responsible for their families. A second piece of legislation, the ‘Verwaarloosde Kinder Versorgings Wet’ (Neglected Children’s Care Act), passed in the same year, allowed for neglected children to be placed in apprenticeships. A child welfare society was established in the colony in 1908 in an attempt to deal with destitute children and to respond to the high incidence of infant mortality and in 1913, the ‘Wet ter Beskerming van Kindern’ (the Act for the Protection of Children) was passed. In Johannesburg, a child welfare society was established around similar concerns in 1909. By 1924 there were a sufficient number of child welfare agencies to form a national council, the South African National Council for Child and Family Welfare (which continues as Child Welfare South Africa today). Volunteers and health personnel performed the initial work, with the first social workers being appointed in the 1930s and a state welfare department being launched in 1937. Thus, not unlike Anglo-American beginnings to child welfare, the sector was built on paternalism and middle class values that promoted the idea of rescuing children from immorality.
8 While child welfare agencies served mostly White children, it should be noted that services were not directed at them and their families exclusively. For example, agency documents show that as early as 1945 Pretoria8 Child Welfare was offering programs in Mamelodi, Atteridgeville and Eesterust, and the Vereeniging agency was doing the same in respect of Sharpeville. However, the services delivered to ‘non-white’ areas were never resourced to the same extent that the services to Whites were, thus leading to significant differences in the quality of services rendered.9
9Various authors have critiqued the social work function, and child protection work in particular, as a mechanism of control that maintains the status quo (see De Montigny, Social Working; Parada, ‘Social work practices within the restructured child welfare system in Ontario’; Parton, Social theory, social change and social work as examples). This use of social work to control was explicit in the South African context. Because funding would be threatened if government prescriptions were not followed, child welfare agencies generally adhered to the state directives, for example, ensuring that workers were of the same racial background as the group they were serving. Indeed, Annual Reports show that it was only in the late 1980s that the Johannesburg Child Welfare Society, for example, ‘rationalized’ its departments so that all clients were served through the same department and by the same staff. Subsidies for workers were differentiated according to race, and again it was only the exceptional organization that paid all employees the same salaries and fundraised to meet the concomitant shortfall.
10Some child welfare agencies were more directly complicit in the apartheid machinery. The welfare submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1999) thus reflects that there were workers who informed on colleagues to the security police. Social workers whose behaviours were interpreted as threatening the political order frequently faced dismissal. Only a minority of formal state-subsidized agencies dared to take a position against the state. The National Council for Child and Family Welfare, representing child welfare agencies around the country had a stronger position as a national body. While the Council had over the years pointed out the lack of services in certain areas or called for parity in grants, it had never overtly taken a position against the State. The relevant board minutes show that in 1986, after much discussion and debate, the Council released a courageous, but also cautious, statement against the detention of children, noting that the State of Emergency was harmful both to children and their families.
11In the 1980s a progressive movement of social workers developed. Simultaneously, civic society was mobilized giving rise to non-governmental community-based organizations that attempted both to fill the gaps of non-provision by the state and to offer the types of services that were meaningful to the majority of the population. In this context, the seeds of alternative and indigenous social work practice emerged (Patel, Restructuring Social Welfare10 and Social Welfare and Social Development in South Africa).
12The challenge in the post-apartheid context has been to transform the child welfare system into one that is representative, accessible, consolidated and responsive. Thus, healing has had to occur both on a structural and a practice level. Three major developments have altered the parameters in which the child welfare sector now operates. The first is the creation of a rights culture, the second is the introduction of a new welfare policy and the third is the expansion of social security provisions. Policies and legislation specific to child welfare have developed against this background. However, shifting the child welfare practice and policy to conform to this new framework has been difficult. I argue that transformation has been hindered by a severe lack of resources, and by a child welfare orientation that zeroes in on issues of child protection and safety and that overall is at odds with the preferred approach as expressed in the new welfare policy.
13The discourse around rights has had a significant impact on how children and thus child welfare interventions are understood. The South African Constitution captured the vision of the Freedom Charter in describing both individual and collective rights. The government has also signed various international declarations that speak to children’s rights, including the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.11
14Although the state did not sign previous international agreements that addressed children’s rights, these were not entirely ignored during the apartheid era, with child welfare agencies not only acknowledging but drawing inspiration from the Geneva Convention on the Rights of the Child as occurred in the chairman’s address in one annual report. It would appear that even the most sincere social workers and board members did not see the contradictions between the policy of separate development and their desire to ensure that every child’s needs were taken care of.
15However, there is clearly a new consciousness around the issue of rights. Children’s rights have become a touchstone. An Office on the Rights of the Child has been established within the President’s Office. The National Committee for the Rights of the Child and its provincial equivalents have taken on the child rights agenda directly. From my observations, program outlines and funding proposals from child welfare organizations are liberally sprinkled with phrases that speak to the importance of children’s rights.
16Developmental Social Welfare (DSW), the alternative approach introduced in the White Paper of 1996, incorporates this foundation of rights-based thinking. Fundamentally, DSW was put forward by the state as a means of addressing the failures of apartheid-style welfare delivery. Welfare initiatives during apartheid have been characterized as being remedial, residual, specialist and expensive (Patel, Social Welfare and Social Development in South Africa). In addition, the welfare policies of old promoted fragmentation and discrimination. A system adhering to such views and practices was unable to meet the needs of the majority of South Africans. DSW suggests that a family-centered, community-based, generic approach that is driven by community participation will be more responsive to current needs. Intersectoral collaboration and integrated strategies across social work methods, social work fields, state departments and levels of government are central to the philosophy of DSW. Further, evolving from the work of Midgley, DSW synthesizes economic and social development goals into one model. This is in contrast to other approaches, which promote either economic or social development agendas, one at the cost of the other (Dutschke, Defining Children’s Constitutional Right to Social Services; Patel, Social Welfare and Social Development in South Africa). While critiques have been leveled against the document,12 the White Paper does offer a comprehensive framework for the re-conceptualization of welfare. What it does not offer is specifics on how to translate this philosophy into action.
17Legislation and policies have been developed in the child welfare sector to attempt to address this gap. These include the Children’s Act No 38 of 2006, the Children’s Amendment Bill, the National Strategic Plan for Abused, Neglected and Exploited Children, the Minimum Standards for the South African Child and Youth Care System and the Child Care Forum Guidelines.
18Another positive shift has been the bolstering of the social security system. While parity of grants was only achieved in 1993, social security awards such as an old age pension, disability pension and support for single parents were already in place under the apartheid system.13 The government has identified the strengthening of the social security net as a major poverty alleviation strategy, and at least 90 % of the welfare budget has been allocated to this area (Dutschke, Defining Children’s Constitutional Right to Social Services). A Child Support Grant (CSG) was introduced in 1998, initially providing only for younger children but now being available (based on a means test) to caregivers of children up to the age of 14. Critics argue that a more effective means of addressing poverty would be the introduction of a Basic Income Grant.14 Nevertheless, it is acknowledged that the state has made significant strides as regards social security.
19Considering that there is a strong rights foundation to children’s work and a progressive welfare framework, and bearing in mind that more appropriate legislation is being developed and social security has been enhanced, how is it that as a sector child welfare has not transformed radically?
20Jackie Loffell, who arguably is one of South Africa’s most prominent and articulate advocates for children’s issues, maintains that the child welfare system has attempted to shift, but has needed to retreat from preventive activities to focusing on statutory interventions almost exclusively due to resource constraints (Loffell, personal communication, 2006).
21Indeed, the child welfare sector is, as noted by Dutschke (Defining Children’s Constitutional Right to Social Services, 2), ‘in disarray’. Both human and funding resources are severely lacking. The statutory aspect of child welfare work is carried out in part by government but also by a wide range of non-profit agencies. The subsidies received by these non-profit agencies are woefully inadequate, with the state itself recognizing this under-funding of social service provision in its Financial Awards Policy (2004). My review of annual reports of three established child welfare organizations demonstrates that a concern regarding funding has been a perennial problem. Welfare has been typically marginalized, and the introduction of a post-apartheid era has–despite expectations to the contrary–done little to alleviate this problem. Hence, less than 10 % of the welfare budget is allocated to social services (Dutschke, Defining Children’s Constitutional Right to Social Services). Agencies have been expected to ensure that previously disadvantaged communities are served, their personnel are representative of the broader demographics, and their practice is fundamentally transformed in accordance with DSW principles. This all has had to be done within severely limited budgets. Many of the established child welfare agencies receive less than half of their funding from the state, needing to cover deficits with money raised from the business sector and donor agencies.15 The annual reports reviewed infer that this has always been a challenge but has become increasingly so in recent years.
22The assumptions by government regarding funding have been problematic. For example, Dutschke (Defining Children’s Constitutional Right to Social Services) notes that while adult rights are spoken to specifically, the Constitution does not adequately enlarge upon the rights of children, especially in the area of social services. There is thus no clear constitutional directive that drives the provision of social services to children, and as a consequence, no clear funding imperative. The premises underlying funding allocation are also contested. The Financial Awards Policy (2004) outlines how the DSW model is to be financed. In contrast to the DSW, this document has a strong neo-liberal slant.16 In this policy, funding is not an entitlement for particular types of service delivery. Rather, services are bought by the state. The intent is to ensure that social service delivery is directed to high-needs areas (typically rural and marginalized communities). While this goal is laudable, there are a number of potentially flawed assumptions within the rationale for funding allocation. Firstly, the belief is that established agencies have strong funding bases, independent of the government subsidy, and thus are somehow sustainable. Coming to this conclusion ignores that other potential sources of funding are precarious, overlooks the time, energy and money required to raise such funds, and does not recognize the overall fragility of so-called established agencies. Secondly, it also assumes that established agencies are in a position to contribute to the capacity building of smaller, emerging organizations. While there undoubtedly is expertise that can be shared, the act of capacity building itself requires resources. There is also somewhat of a double message: formal agencies are identified as working from outdated models, and yet they are being asked to share this suspect knowledge. Finally, it is being overlooked that child welfare agencies in particular are carrying out a state mandate through their statutory work and thus should be fully subsidized. The government’s lack of a firm commitment in terms of the subsidization of services, particularly as regards statutory services, has been an ongoing concern for the non-profit sector, who also argues that adequate norms and standards to inform funding priorities are missing (Gauteng Welfare, Social Service and Development Forum, 2006).
23The crisis is not only related to funding, but is also about staffing. There are an inadequate number of social workers to meet the need in South Africa. A costing of the proposed Children’s Bill has indicated that at the lowest levels of implementation, around 16,000 social workers would be needed. To implement the legislation at an acceptable standard, a corps of 66,000 would be required.17 Current estimates suggest that there are 9,000 qualified social workers in South Africa, engaged in all fields of welfare (Loffell, ‘The Use of the Statutory Foster Care System to Support Long-Term Kinship Care: Impact on the Social Welfare System and the Social Work Profession’). Universities are unable to produce social workers at a rate that would address the shortage. A further complication is that the government, in an effort to meet its own targets, is actively recruiting social workers away from the non-profit sector by offering more lucrative packages. Many social workers have also left South Africa in search of greener pastures. The turnover of workers in the non-profit sector is critical,18 affecting the quality of service, the level of morale and the potential for secondary abuse (Loffell, ‘The Use of the Statutory Foster Care System to Support Long-Term Kinship Care: Impact on the Social Welfare System and the Social Work Profession’). While agencies have for a number of years used social auxiliary workers, community developers and volunteers, efforts to increase this human resource base have been late in coming. There is also the contradiction that while social workers are expected in terms of DSW to work in a generic, independent and creative manner, social workers are increasingly being deployed as glorified clerks dealing with social security issues (Loffell, ‘The Use of the Statutory Foster Care System to Support Long-Term Kinship Care: Impact on the Social Welfare System and the Social Work Profession’).
24The pressure to focus on court-directed procedures has been driven by the HIV-AIDS crisis. The number of children whose parents are too ill to care for them or who have been orphaned is on the rise, with around 3.4 million children having lost either one or both parents by the end of 2005.19 Substitute caregivers, typically grandmothers and aunts, tend to be impoverished. The CSG offers about a quarter of the financial support provided through the Foster Care Grant (FCG). Caregivers are tending to apply for the larger grant, with a 650 % increase in applications since 2000–without a parallel expansion of resources (Loffell, ‘The Use of the Statutory Foster Care System to Support Long-Term Kinship Care: Impact on the Social Welfare System and the Social Work Profession’). The process of securing an FCG is based on procedures informed by ‘First World’ standards: an investigation by a social worker which demonstrates that the child is in need of protection is presented to the court; the magistrate issues a court order for foster care if the application is deemed acceptable; the child is placed with the foster parent and is monitored by a social worker on a regular basis (Loffell, ‘The Use of the Statutory Foster Care System to Support Long-Term Kinship Care: Impact on the Social Welfare System and the Social Work Profession’). This system functioned when the number of foster parents was relatively small. The system (both the child welfare and the court sector) has been unable to respond to the demand, resulting in significant backlogs. At a conference hosted by the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund on 7 March, 2007 to discuss the crisis in the foster care backlog, it was agreed that the majority of children and caregivers requiring financial support do not need the protections involved in the foster care process, the tool thus not matching the need.
25It is thus undeniable that the inadequate resourcing has in a very profound way affected the capacity of the child welfare sector, both at governmental and non-governmental levels. The competition around human resources, and the insecurity created by a lack of financial resources has created rifts between parties that should be working together for children.
26I would like to turn now to a less visible issue which I believe fundamentally hinders appropriate service delivery in the child welfare sector. This has to do with the essential orientation of South African child welfare, as it is reflected both within government and the non-profit sector.
27As noted when reflecting on the history of child welfare in South Africa, the movement has its roots in colonialism. The development of child welfare closely mirrors that in the Anglo-American countries. This is no accident as social work students have been educated through literature originating in English-speaking lands.20 There is a constant aspiration to be up-to-date with ‘international’ trends, which generally again reflect Anglo-American traditions. This was evidenced in the 1980s (for example, the importing of the STEP parenting program from America) and continues currently. For example, a Canadian professor is centrally involved in shaping Child and Youth Work practice in South Africa, and the government is collaborating with experts from Canada in terms of developing a child protection register. British professionals have helped child protection workers become familiar with risk assessment models.21 South Africa should not adopt an isolationist stance but it would appear that even at a time when indigenous models are being sought, that significant weight is placed on what comes from the outside. South Africans appear to have internalized the notion that ‘international is good’, this facilitating the process by which unitary, Western systems again colonize local knowledge systems.22 DSW evolved out of an attempt to find a local response to mass poverty and the social problems that exist in South Africa (Patel, Social Welfare and Social Development in South Africa). It is critical that the child welfare response also is an indigenous one, built on South African conceptualizations of children and families and parochial means of problem-solving and sustaining community. Overseas experiences can be considered but should not be imported wholesale or assumed to be able to work in this very unique context.23
28In accordance with this trend to emulate Anglo-American developments, it is understandable that the South African child welfare model closely resembles the child protection approach used in such places as the United States of America, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.24 As noted by Freymond and Cameron, among others, the child protection model tends to value an interventionist approach that is professionally driven. Help is offered at the point that a child is identified as being at risk or in need of protection. While prevention does form part of the spectrum of activities, it typically is not prioritized. Structural issues contributing to child abuse and neglect are usually overlooked, with the focus being on the parent/s’ functioning. Families frequently experience child welfare involvement as unsupportive and blaming, particularly as workers are tasked with investigating complaints and presenting proof of wrongdoing to the court. Critics have labeled child protection models as individualized, discriminatory, targeting marginalized populations, adversarial and being unable to effectively deal with abuse. If this approach has difficulty addressing needs in a resourced context, how much more will it be ineffective in a context plagued by poverty, crime and an AIDS pandemic?
29This child protection message–which is expert-led, investigative, punitive and individualized–is woven through as a dominant thread in key child welfare legislation and policies.25 While themes of family- and community-based interventions, intersectoral work and integrated efforts are included these are diluted by the overarching message of child protection.
30The child protection focus on the individual is further reflected in the child rights discourse. It is no surprise that a strong rights culture has developed in an environment where people’s fundamental rights were actively violated over decades. It is though important to consider where the rights discourse promotes the interests of children, family and their communities, and where it may potentially undermine these. Ansell cautions that attention be paid to how notions of the child are constructed and how the idea of rights reinforces particular narratives. The ‘international’ child rights’ discourse is greatly influenced by Western, and in particular, Anglo-American views both of children and of rights.26 An individualized (focused on the individual and ignoring collective notions of being as well as structural influences) and individualistic (promoting individual rights at the expense of collective rights) agenda defines how rights are identified. In the context of child welfare, the Anglo-American philosophy is centered on the standard of ‘the best interests of the child’. South Africans have publicly reclaimed the notion of ‘ubuntu’, the idea that individual wellbeing cannot be separated from collective wellbeing. Thus, while extended family structures continue to be eroded by the effects of poverty, crime and AIDS, the values around kinship care are still espoused. Indeed, relatives are looking after the majority of children requiring substitute care (Loffell, ‘The Use of the Statutory Foster Care System to Support Long-Term Kinship Care: Impact on the Social Welfare System and the Social Work Profession’). In this environment, the promotion of an individualistically founded rights discourse has the potential to weaken the very networks and supports that ought to surround the child. Burman warns that in focusing exclusively on children’s best interests in the legal arena there is a danger of undermining collective rights.27
31Another concern is that the primacy of the rights discourse in the South African child welfare sector has led to some tunnel vision, as the promotion of rights has become an end in and of itself. My preliminary review of agency documents reflects that many child welfare activities are geared towards informing children and communities of the rights of children, with extensive awareness campaigns being embarked upon. Rights education is critical in that it is difficult to assert one’s rights if one does not know what these are. However, in South Africa there is a vacuum of services and supports to enable many of these rights from being actualized. Education about rights without concomitant service delivery potentially leaves children vulnerable to secondary abuse, and becomes disempowering rather than enabling.
32In addition to the rights framework, my preliminary review of both agency documents and Child Welfare South Africa’s annual reports suggests that the protection focus is imbued in other areas of child welfare practice also. The bulk of the child welfare effort is directed at early intervention (engaging with families where a problem has already been identified) and statutory work. While community-based efforts are in many instances being strengthened, the emphasis remains on identifying abuse. Programs labeled as ‘prevention’ tend to be geared towards increasing awareness of what abuse is and how to identify abuse, and in the case of service providers, how to manage disclosures. For example, the main goal of Isolabantwana (meaning the Eye on the Child), a program promoted by Child Welfare South Africa, is to train volunteers who are able to identify vulnerable children in the community. The volunteers intervene during an emergency and then connect children into the formal child welfare system. While the service is indeed community-based and relies on human resources in the child’s neighbourhood, it serves ultimately to increase surveillance, rather than to build crucial community networks around children and their families. The social worker is still regarded as the expert, using local knowledge as an adjunct. In addition, much of the help directed towards supporting children and families affected by HIV/AIDS is instrumental, such as accessing identification documents or assisting with grant applications. While such help is needed and learning how to negotiate these systems can be helpful, the assistance offered tends to fit in with a paternalistic notion of helping.
33A further apparent barrier to transformation is the lack of clarity as regards the distinctions between a child protection and DSW approach. There seems to be a notion that these approaches can be used in tandem, when their fundamental precepts contradict each other. Further a formal articulation of what Developmental Social Welfare might look like in the child welfare context is absent. Early indications in my review of agency policies suggests that while the term ‘developmental social welfare’ may be inserted into service delivery plans from time to time, there is no clear understanding of how to apply DSW principles in this sector. Lack of clarity is not limited to the child welfare field with Dutschke (Defining Children’s Constitutional Right to Social Services) making a case that terminology around social services, social welfare and social development is used in contradictory ways across government documents. However, without a conceptualization of DSW in child welfare, one cannot have clear objectives of how DSW might be implemented and certainly will struggle to put in place programs that speak to DSW. In addition, a sophisticated understanding of what transformation means in the South African context appears to be missing. The initial analysis of the data suggests that transformation is understood exclusively as ensuring that the staff complement is representative of the broader population and that previously disadvantaged populations are serviced. Offering ‘programs appropriate to the African context’ tends to be limited to ensuring that services are provided in local languages and are geographically accessible. Responses in service plans regarding ‘beneficiary participation’ suggest that inviting feedback both informally and through evaluations is sufficient in facilitating participation. Volunteer involvement appears to be equated with community participation.
34There are though elements of more progressive work. For example, it seems to have been typical for the agencies reviewed to have had an established Early Childhood Development component to the work. Indeed, in one situation, the crèche was for decades the main activity of the child welfare society, a social work function having only been added relatively recently. In many cases, unfortunately, these crèches have been closed due to a lack of funding. (One may in the near future see a shift in this area as government has prioritized the promotion of Early Childhood Development, and has connected this to the Expanded Public Works Program). It must also be acknowledged that child welfare agencies are increasingly exploring the area of economic empowerment (previously called self-help). In some instances these efforts appear cosmetic rather than changing the fundamental circumstances of the service user, while in others the projects appear indeed to be generating some income for the participants.
35Taking note of the above concerns I would suggest that there needs therefore to be a review of the philosophies informing child welfare legislation, policies and practices in order to facilitate transformation. The fundamental precepts of child welfare activity in South Africa need to be re-thought. Four essential assumptions need to be changed. The first has to do with the point of and reason for intervention. The second is related to who does the work. The third concerns the definition of the family while the fourth is about beneficiary28 participation. In describing features of the child protection, family services and community care models below I am relying on the work done by Freymond and Cameron (Towards Positive Systems of Child and Family Welfare).29
36Firstly, as regards the point of intervention, services are offered in the child protection model when abuse or neglect or the risk of abuse or neglect has been identified. Intervention is thus problem-driven and deficit-based, and is focused on the individual parent. The point of entry is conceptualized fundamentally differently than in the family services model. This approach, which typifies much of European child welfare practice, is based on the philosophy that all families will encounter challenges. Families are offered support in the form of universal, preventive services such as day care and parenting support. There is also an appreciation of the role structural issues might play in contributing to child abuse, neglect and exploitation. In community care models, this is even more explicit with it being expected that forces of oppression and how these have impacted on family functioning be named.
37The second issue concerns where the work is located. An intersectoral, integrated practice characterizes family service work. Child protection activities fall into a continuum of child welfare work, which in turn is connected to more general work with families and communities. Health and welfare practitioners, for example, work together closely. In the community care approaches that have emerged in New Zealand, Australia, Canada and America from indigenous communities, the social worker is seen as part of a much larger team that is dominated by the child’s family network. This is in clear contrast to the stand-alone child protection agency in the child protection model, which is specifically mandated to deal with children who are at risk of being or who have been abused. The community care model places its emphasis on family-driven processes and family expertise, as opposed to the specialized expert social work that is valorized in the child protection approach.
38Taking these two issues of the point of entry shifting and an integrated approach being adopted, South African child welfare services would need to be offered at the front end–before families are experiencing difficulties, the bulk of services being preventive. Such preventive activities would need to go beyond simple awareness raising, to providing skills and supports to community members. The idea of clinics, schools or Early Childhood Development Centres as hubs for services is a useful one (Loffell, ‘The Use of the Statutory Foster Care System to Support Long-Term Kinship Care: Impact on the Social Welfare System and the Social Work Profession’). The Masibambisane Creche, run by the Johannesburg Child Welfare Society, offers an example. At this site pre-school and after-school care facilities are offered. Children’s medical needs in terms of dental, hearing and vision screens are taken care of. (This could be extended to include immunizations, for example). A bakery and other economic empowerment projects are run from the Centre, involving parents and other members from the community. A food garden has also been started. The Centre is also a base for community outreach and support activities, such as the program supporting children affected by HIV/AIDS and their families. Practical instrumental assistance around acquiring school uniforms, identity documents, and food is given. Counselling is another service that is made available. Such facilities could also offer caregivers parenting programs, drop in and respite programs. These centres could provide training and support to child minders in the community. According to Adams such a ‘one-stop shop’ is successful if community members feel that the services are accessible, useful and non-stigmatizing.30 Another indicator of success is where a range of services that draws on a multiplicity of service providers from a number of fields is offered. A palette of intersectoral options allows service users to customize the services to their particular, unique needs.31 Adams has further identified that where teams of service providers work together, rather than alongside each other, informed by a community work rather than a casework perspective, interventions are most likely to be responsive to community need. Multisectoral and interdisciplinary teams become critical in the context of the shortage of social workers. It should be noted therefore that simply being community based does not by itself shift the nature of the service.
39Statutory work has to be significantly reduced for both state and private child welfare agencies to shift to preventive work. As a priority, the crisis regarding foster care applications has to be resolved. On the surface it appears that if the CSG and FGC were brought into line with one another, the stream away from the CSG to the FCG would not exist. A grant process, which eliminates the social work investigation needs to be instituted. In such a process, once a grant is ordered, only minimal social work support and monitoring should be legally required, though community supports should be made available (Loffell, ‘The Use of the Statutory Foster Care System to Support Long-Term Kinship Care: Impact on the Social Welfare System and the Social Work Profession’). While there will always be a need for intervention around abuse, the work done by Adams (‘Bringing the Community Back in Patch and Family Group Decision Making’) demonstrates that where a community driven, multidisciplinary team approach is adopted less intrusive, less stigmatizing and less individually-focused methods are identified for engaging with families in need.
40If the shift is made towards integrated practice in child welfare, greater attention will be paid to how the needs of children identified as abused, neglected or exploited overlap with the needs of orphaned and vulnerable Children (OVC)–children who are affected and infected by HIV/AIDS- and how services that meet the needs of all children can be developed. Child welfare agencies have taken up the cause of OVC, but appear to have struggled to integrate these programs with existing ones. Even at the level of Child Welfare South Africa (the national body representing child welfare organizations) two programming tracks exist: Isolabantwana, a community-based intervention for children who are at risk or have been abused, neglected or exploited, and Asibavikele, a community-based program targeting OVC. This parallel development is mirrored on the national governmental level, where two separate directorates have dealt with OVC and children in need of protection respectively.
41Integration also allows for child welfare issues to be dealt within a broader context. It was related to me that in one community that had been driven apart by political violence, much work had been done post-apartheid to address the deep scars that had formed. Reportedly the incidence of child abuse was higher when the general community violence was at its peak. The more the community worked towards reconciliation, the more the incidence of child abuse decreased. However, the child welfare agency working in this community, despite making the above observation, did not identify community healing as a beginning point for a child abuse prevention effort. Instead in other communities their work was focused on networking with other agencies and promoting awareness. It would seem to me that dealing with community healing (whether this is around political or other violence) is an obvious beginning point for meaningful child abuse prevention work, rather than engaging in awareness campaigns that highlight deficits in communities.
42A third philosophical question that needs to be considered is the definition of family. The expanded notion of family is at the core of the community care models, where it is understood that the child needs a sense of rootedness and belonging with his/her culture and family. Further, it is assumed that the child’s connectedness is not only to his/her parents, but goes beyond to include both immediate and more distant relatives. As evidenced in the Children’s Act, there is in South Africa a beginning recognition that the notion of ‘family’ may be constructed in different ways. This includes not only the various constellations into which the ‘nuclear’ family has morphed, but also kith and kin. Having an appreciation that a number of adults, not just the parent/s or caregivers are or may wish to be connected to a child also will transform practice. Thus, for example, family preservation activities become interventions that engage the child’s circle rather than the caregiver only, strengthening the support base around the caregiver and child. In the case of planning for a child, not just the immediate family, but also others who care about the child would be invited. Family Group Conferencing offers a mechanism for such participation.32 Engaging the people around the child speaks not only to the importance of the child’s more immediate circle, but to the critical nature of children and their caregivers having networks on which they can rely.
43Finally, the participation of service users is appreciated differently in each of the models. The child protection model is distinctly professionally led. While there is movement in some of the Anglo-American countries towards the use of more family-centered approaches that create greater opportunities for family involvement, interventions still are professionally driven. It appears to be hard for social workers to let go of the power that has traditionally been associated with their position, particularly in statutory work. It is also difficult to shift away from the adversarial culture that is reinforced by the court system. Family services models adopt a more conciliatory and collaborative stance towards families, focusing from the outset on finding joint solutions. The bias in the community care approaches is towards collective decision-making that is driven by the family group.
44In order to build links between individuals and between individuals and formal resources, participation must be both meaningful and reciprocal (Cameron & Vanderwoerd, Protecting Children and Supporting Families). Community members thus need to be involved in decisions that are important to them and that affect their lives. Service users must see that they can fundamentally shape not only how services are offered, but also which services are offered. Participation becomes a process around democratizing child welfare work. This cannot be done without engaging community members in the strategic decision making of the agency, which includes program development, but also issues such as the hiring of staff.
45The question of service user participation is closely connected also to the idea of networks and social capital. In shifting from a child protection orientation, the primary goal of intervention is to build meaningful nets of support around individuals. It has been repeatedly demonstrated (Cameron & Vanderwoerd, Protecting children and supporting families) that those individuals who have people they can call on when in need are less likely to face crises and are more likely to have the capacity to minimize the negative impact of such crises on their lives. Again, this is not to suggest that all responsibility should simply be placed on families and communities. The heavy emphasis on ‘self reliance’ in recent government documents pertaining to welfare implies a neo-liberal approach that limits government support and underlines families and communities taking care of themselves, regardless of the resources available or of systemic issues that constrain positive functioning. Rather, the stress should lie on working in partnership with families and communities, and facilitating the resourcing of these networks.
46A child welfare system in South Africa thus needs to move towards a more universal understanding of family challenges, offering services at the front end rather than when particular problems emerge and working as part of generic, interdisciplinary teams within a community-driven, participatory philosophy. These are all principles highlighted in the DSW framework.
47In conclusion, welfare systems in South Africa both actively and passively reinforced the ills of apartheid. The child welfare sector was generally complicit in undermining family and community structures, and essentially increased the vulnerability of children rather than creating the systems and supports to protect them. While this occurred in part due to the implementation of apartheid policies, family life was also harmed by the inappropriate residual, individualistic, patronizing and adversarial foundations of child welfare practices.
48Dominant practice, legislation and policies in South Africa remain rooted in a child protection philosophy, though efforts to move towards a greater DSW orientation are being made. However, the child welfare sector needs to review the basic assumptions underpinning the work and develop an articulation of DSW in child welfare. It must be recognized that a change in philosophy will require adequate resources from the state as no interventions can succeed without adequate funding support.
49If the South African child welfare sector chooses to ignore the need for transformation at this basic level, even with a representative staff and community-based initiatives it stands in danger of replicating the injuries of the past.
Bibliographie
Des DOI sont automatiquement ajoutés aux références bibliographiques par Bilbo, l’outil d’annotation bibliographique d’OpenEdition. Ces références bibliographiques peuvent être téléchargées dans les formats APA, Chicago et MLA.
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Notes de bas de page
1 Loffell, J., ‘The Use of the Statutory Foster Care System to Support Long-Term Kinship Care: Impact on the Social Welfare System and the Social Work Profession’. Prepared for the National Welfare, Social Service and Development Forum, 2007.
2 It is difficult to find labels that adequately describe global economic and social differences. Identifiers such a ‘first/ third world’, ‘developed/undeveloped/underdeveloped’, ‘North/South’ all tell only parts of the story.
3 Foucault, M., The Archaeology of Knowledge. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972.
4 The words used as racial identifiers in South Africa have typically been loaded. I attempt to avoid using the labels ‘white’, ‘coloured’, ‘indian’ and ‘african’ as far as possible, and refer to racial categories only when needed.
5 Barbarin, O., & Richter, L., Mandela’s Children: Growing Up in Post-Apartheid South Africa. New York: Routledge, 2001.
6 Rabe, M., ‘A Migrant and a Father–Is It Possible?’ Children First 58 (November/December 2004); Richter, L., Manegold, J., Pather, R., & Mason, A., ‘Harnessing Our Manpower’, Children First 54 (March/April 2004); Wilson, F., ‘Ideal of Manhood Beyond Many Men’. Children First, 58 (November/December 2004). All retrieved 20 January, 2005, from www.childrenfirst.org.za.
7 Fraser-Moleketi, G., ‘Reconciliation: Looking Back, Reaching Forward: Indigenous Peoples and Child Welfare’. Opening address at ‘From pain to rainbows: towards a transformed child welfare system’. Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada. November 2005.
8 Now known as Tshwane.
9 Patel, L., ed., Social Welfare and Social Development in South Africa (South Africa: Oxford University Press, 2005).
10 Patel, L., Restructuring Social Welfare: options for South Africa (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1992).
11 Dutschke, M., Defining Children’s Constitutional Right to Social Services. A Project 28 Working Paper, July 2006. Cape Town: Children’s Institute, University of Cape Town.
12 See Follentine, S., ‘Towards a Common Conceptual Understanding of Developmental Social Welfare and Its Implication for Practice’ (Paper presented at the national Conference for Social Service Practitioners. Dialogue across Disciplines: Partnerships in Development. Pretoria, South Africa, 2004); Streak, J., ‘Government’s Social Development Response to Children Made Vulnerable by HIV/AIDS: Identifying Gaps in Policy and Budgeting’. IDASA, (2005). Retrieved on 12 December, 2005 from www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0001589/index.php; Van Eeden, E., Ryke, E., & De Necker, I., ‘The welfare function of the South African government before and after apartheid’, Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk, 36.1 (2000): 1-24.
13 Triegaardt, J., ‘The Child Support Grant in South Africa: A Social Policy for Poverty Alleviation?’, International Journal of Social Welfare 14 (2005): 249-255.
14 Meintjies, H., Budlender, D., Giese, S & Johnson, L., ‘Children in “Need of Care” or in Need of Cash? Questioning Social Security Provisions for Orphans in the Context of the South African AIDS Epidemic’, 2003. Retrieved 14 February, 2006, from www.web.uct.ac.za/depts/ci Streak, ‘Government’s social development response to children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS’; Triegaardt, ‘The Child Support Grant in South Africa’.
15 For example, the Johannesburg Annual Report for 1996/7 states that only 33 % of their income was from state subsidies, while the Tshwane Annual Report for 2002/3 reflects that only 44 % of their income was in the form of subsidy.
16 Sewpaul, V., & Hoelscher, D., Social Work in Times of Neo-liberalism: A Postmodern Discourse. Pretoria: Van Schaik, 2004.
17 Barberton, C., The Cost of the Children’s Bill. Report for the National Department of Social Development. Cornerstone, 2006.
18 Mackay, P., ‘Social Workers Face War of Attrition’. Children First 50 (August/September 2003). Retrieved 20 January, 2005, from www.childrenfirst. org.za; Briede, M., & Loffell, J., ‘Making Social Work Workable’, Children First 61 (May/June 2005). Retrieved 9 July, 2005, from www.childrenfirst.org.za.
19 Monson, J., Hall, K., Smith, C., & Shung-King, M., ‘South African Child Gauge’. Children’s Institute, University of Cape Town, 2006.
20 Engelbrecht, L., ‘Indigenous Social Work Field Practice Education: An Ecosystems Perspective’, Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk 37-4 (2001): 347-365.
21 Rumsey, H., ‘Learning Risk Assessment in South Africa: Issues of Language, Power and Interpretation’, Social Work Education 19.3 (2000): 207-218.
22 Haug, E., ‘Critical Reflections on the Emerging Discourse of International Social Work’, International Social Work 48.2 (2005): 126-136.
23 Osei-Hwedie, K., A Search for Legitimate Social Development Education and Practice Models for Africa. Studies in African Economic and Social development, Volume 7 (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1995).
24 Freymond, N., & Cameron, G., Towards Positive Systems of Child and Family Welfare: International Comparisons of Child Protection, Family Service and Community Caring Systems (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006).
25 Schmid, J., ‘Quo Vadis: Trends in South African Child Welfare Policies’, International Journal of Social Work 50.3 (2007): pages unknow; Schmid, J., ‘Responding to the South African Child Welfare Crisis’, Canadian Social Work Review 23.1-2 (2007): 111-127.
26 Ansell, N., Children, Youth and Development (London: Routledge, 2005).
27 Burman, S., ‘The Best Interests of the South African Child’, International Journal of Law, Policy and Family 17 (2003): 28-40.
28 A dilemma exists around the naming of people who use services. ‘Service user’ does not connote the power relationships that may exist and ‘consumer’ or ‘client’ are overridden with business imagery. Many of the government documents refer to ‘beneficiaries’. While this term is appropriate in the context of social security, it seems to be a patronizing term, suggesting that the service user can only be in the passive role of recipient of service. No ideal term exists.
29 Undoubtedly other child welfare models exist but these have not been formally articulated.
30 Adams, P., ‘Bringing the Community Back in Patch and Family Group Decision Making’. In Burford, G. & Hudson, J. Family Group Conferencing: New directions in child and family centered practice (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2000): 105-119.
31 Cameron, G., & Vanderwoerd, J., Protecting Children and Supporting Families: Promising Programs and Organizational Realities (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1997).
32 Burford, G., & Hudson, J., eds. Family Group Conferencing: New Directions in Community-Centered Child and Family Practice (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2000).
Auteur
-
Jeanette Schmid
Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
Is a social worker with more than 25 years of experience. She has practiced in South Africa, Switzerland and Canada. Her experience crosses a range of fields including developmental delay, crime prevention, restorative justice, mediation and conflict resolution, political and other trauma, refugees, early childhood intervention, child welfare and Family Group Conferencing. She is currently a PhD candidate, her research focusing on a genealogy of South African child welfare.
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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