A Study of Shelters for Street Children from an Organizational ...

enforcement officers, outreach workers, social workers and children's peers. Shelters
do not enforce that children must stay. A 'children's home' is different from a shelter in
that while the law requires that both facilities be registered (Childcare Act 74 of 1983),
children in children's home are processed through courts and their period of stay
specified. Children have no choice to be in any children's homes nor have the liberty
whether stay. 'Children's Homes' replicate 'reformatory schools' or 'places of safety'. In
this regard, 'Children's Homes' are part of government budgets and receive higher
financial allocation from the Department of Welfare than the shelters. Shelters were
designed in three phases, first, second, and third phase shelters. While Children's
home' do not follow that design.
A first phase shelter is where almost all children from the streets come after referrals by
outreach workers or law enforcement agencies. Shelters provide minimum but
necessary services to meet children's basic needs. The focus is to reduce harm,
stabilizing children's emotional, mental and physical conditions. The period of stay is
minimal and during that time, efforts are made to reunite children with their families or
communities of origin. Further, shelters move children to second phase shelters where
their services are comprehensive and period of stay longer while continuing with the
efforts to locate their relatives. The notion of first, second, and third phase shelters
sees intervention strategies in array of stages and continuity and the key is to link
children's developmental needs as they grow. Shelters consider that children
reorientation and needs will change as they grow and mature. In this regard, it would
be self-defeating to combine all children in one program or place who have different
levels of needs.
Second and third phase shelters replicate 'Children's Homes' in that the duration of
stay is longer, services include formal education, skills development, and children are
more stabilised emotionally and socially. There is a debate whether to merge second
and third phase shelters into children's homes in order to avoid the duplication. The
research sample included first and second phase shelters consequently both terms
'shelters and children's homes' are used in the dissertation. The main point to bear in
mind is that children in the shelters (first and second phases) are not processed
through courts but are there of their free will, and shelters are financially under-funded.
Shelter's intervention strategies assume that children stay in the shelters for a short
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