¨ This is a crucial form of support,
but social security measures do not intrinsically require the attention of our
limited children’s court and social work resources. These are urgently needed
for the protection and healing of children affected by abuse, which is at
epidemic levels in our country.
¨ Orphans and vulnerable children are being deprived of the types of
services which they really need, which overlap with, but also differ in important respects
from, those delivered to children who are in foster care due to a need for
protection from abuse.
¨ Although social work has been
designated as a scarce skill, social
workers are in effect being deployed as social security clerks. There is no
time for them to do anything other than process children through the courts and
onto the Foster Care Grant rolls.
¨ Continual movement of NPO staff due to aggressive recruitment by
government to address the foster care backlog is creating gaps all over the children’s service
system and in services to all other vulnerable groups served by the social
development sector. Essential children’s services, ironically, are among
those most severely affected. The service ethos is being damaged and service
users are being harmed in the process.
Please see the attached discussion paper for a more detailed
analysis of the above issues. The document also proposes an alternative
approach. In relation to the Children’s Act and the Children’s Amendment Bill
this involves:
1.
A legal distinction between foster care and informal kinship care,[1] as proposed by the SA Law Reform
Commission.
2.
Legal recognition for the position of extended family members who are
caring for orphans, where there is no evidence of a need for services to
protect children from maltreatment.
3.
The strengthening of Chapter 8 of
the Bill, which
deals with prevention and early intervention services, so as to provide for a
national roll-out, particularly in the poorest communities, of the support
services needed by orphans and vulnerable children and their families, along
with other children and families who are at risk. These could involve the full range of social service professionals,
assisted by personnel in other categories and volunteers. The emerging cadre of
community development workers could play an extensive role here. The roll-out
should give priority to the poorest communities and those with the highest
rates of orphanhood. It could incorporate the existing process of developing
Child Care Forums for orphans and vulnerable children throughout the country. The
activities should be built into the Integrated Development Plans of local
authorities. The use of schools as nodes of care and support would also be an
important aspect.
Annexure A lists proposed
amendments to the Bill to provide for the above elements.
The measures suggested for the
Bill need to be combined with a shift in the social security system.
There are three possible routes currently being debated between
organisations concerned with child rights, namely:
·
Provision for an Informal Kinship Care Grant (IKCG), as described in the draft Children’s Bill
originally prepared by the SA Law Reform Commission, which would be available
to children who are in the care of extended family members, in cases where
financial assistance is needed but protection against maltreatment is not
required. The amount paid for such a grant would be at the discretion of
government – it could be equal to the Foster Care Grant if this were
affordable.
·
Lifting of the age ceiling on the
Child Support Grant (CSG) and reduction
or elimination of the gap between this benefit and the Foster Care Grant (FCG). In addition there should be a
substantial adjustment of the means
test, which has been in place since the inception of the CSG – if this cannot
be done away with altogether. Such an approach would have the advantage of
requiring only a change to the Regulations of the Social Assistance Act rather
than the Act itself. The extension of the CSG is favoured by many organisations
because of the perverse incentive which exists for children to be left in the
care of relatives in order to gain access to the FCG, as this could also arise
in relation to an IKCG. These organisations also point to an element of
injustice in the present situation, which discriminates against extremely poor
children who are in the care of their biological parents, in favour of those
who are with relatives.
·
Provision of the CSG at two different
levels, one for
biological parents and one for other caregivers, in situations where statutory
protection from maltreatment is not required. This could also be achieved
through an amendment to the Regulations of the Social Assistance Act. Proponents of this approach also call
for the lifting of the age-ceiling of the CSG, an increase in the amount paid,
and the relaxation of the means test.
It is proposed that the feasibility of the above approaches
be fully investigated within a process running parallel to that relating to the
Children’s Amendment Bill.
The NWSSDF regards the present deliberations regarding the
Children’s Amendment Bill as an opportunity to address the present crisis, and
to create a system which will be able to make a real impact on the overwhelming
problems faced by the orphans and vulnerable children of our country.
Thank you for your consideration of these proposals.
Yours sincerely,
MARILYN SETLALENTOA RAJESH
LATCHMAN
NATIONAL CHAIRPERSON NATIONAL
COORDINATOR
ANNEXURE A
PROPOSED INSERTIONS AND
AMENDMENTS TO THE CHILDREN’S AMENDMENT BILL[2]
A. The following insertions are suggested to
flesh out the sections in Chapter 8 which describe the types of prevention and
early intervention services which are to be provided, and to provide for an
early intervention role for schools and local authorities:
Purposes of
prevention and early intervention services or programmes
144(1) (describing prevention and
early intervention services which are to be provided)…………………..
(i) providing assistance with issues
of trauma and grief in families affected by illness, death, separation,
violence or natural disasters;
(j) providing practical assistance
and guidance for older persons, children and young adults who are serving as
caregivers for children;
(k) providing assistance to families
with children with disabilities;
(l) providing assistance to families
with children with chronic illnesses;
(m) providing assistance to children
in families with sick or terminally ill caregivers and children living in
child-headed households;
(n) providing assistance to children
suffering from substance abuse or children living with caregivers suffering
from substance abuse; and
(o) providing aftercare services and
support to children when they leave residential care.
144(2) Prevention and early intervention services or programmes may
must where necessary
include –
(a) assisting
families to obtain the basic necessities of life and to access essential
services;
(b) empowering families to obtain
such necessities and access essential services for themselves.
(c) providing families in
desperate need with the basic necessities of life including food, clothing, and
shelter
146(5) Every local
authority must develop, in cooperation with all relevant local roleplayers, an
intersectoral plan for supportive services to orphans and vulnerable children.
148. The principal of a public or
private school must on a confidential basis –
i)
identify children who are frequently absent from school, where this may
be due to their becoming involved in exploitative child labour or excessive
household responsibilities, or to lack of appropriate family care;
ii)
take all reasonable steps to assist them in returning to school or to
discourage them from leaving school;
iii)
submit the names and addresses of those children to an appropriate
prevention or early intervention programme or alternative support service, or
to the nearest office of the Department of Social Development for assistance;
and
iv)
submit the names and addresses of those children to the provincial head
of Social Development, for purposes of data-gathering and planning.
B. The following amendment
is recommended to secure the position of the services in question in planning
and budgeting processes:
146.
(1) The Minister must include in the departmental strategy a comprehensive national
strategy aimed at securing the provision of prevention and early intervention
services to families, parents, care-givers and children across the country ensure
that a national network of prevention and early intervention services as
described in s145 is in place and operating effectively throughout the country,
based on data reflecting the numbers of vulnerable children and families in
each province.
C. The following
provisions, designed to enable kinship caregivers to properly carry out their
caregiving responsibilities, are drawn directly from ss 207-8 of the original
draft Bill prepared by the SA Law Reform Commission:
Responsibilities and rights
of relatives in terms of informal kinship care arrangements
(1)
A relative caring for a child in
terms of a an informal kinship care arrangement
(a) has the responsibilities and rights in
respect of the child –
(i)
as provided for in section ….. and
any other provision of this Act; and
(ii)
as a court may assign to that
relative in terms of section …; and
(b)
may on behalf of the child’s parent
or guardian -
(i)
consent to medical treatment of or
an operation on the child in terms of section …, or
(ii)
assist the child in terms of
section …. to consent to such operation;
(c)
may on behalf of the child apply to
any organ of state for any grant or other aid in
respect
of which the child may qualify, including a social security grant;
(d)
may consent to the child going on
journeys, including educational, cultural, sports and holiday excursions; and
(e)
may perform such other acts as may
be prescribed by regulation.
(2)
A relative caring for a child in
terms of an informal kinship care arrangement may exercise the responsibilities
and rights referred to in subsection (1) only to the extent that the care of
the child is not provided by the parent, guardian or other person to whom
parental rights and responsibilities in respect of the child have been
assigned.
(3)
Consent or assistance in terms of
subsection (1) (b) may only be given with the written authority of the parent
or guardian except if –
(a)
the child –
(i)
has been abandoned by the parent or
guardian; or
(ii)
is an orphan; or
(iii)
the whereabouts of the parent or
guardian are unknown.
Termination of informal kinship care
arrangement
An
informal kinship care arrangement may at any time be terminated by –
(a)
the parent or guardian of the child
reclaiming his or her right to care for the child, except when a children’s
court orders otherwise;
(b)
the relative caring for the child in
terms of the arrangement;
(c)
the children’s court on application
by the child or any other person with an interest in the care of the child.