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

children with their families where possible or reintegrate them in the communities of
origin or the mainstream society. The process of finding and identifying families or
relatives was daunting but on going. Shelter faced dilemmas in fulfilling this objective.
Social worker's role was crucial, as stipulated by government regulations (Child Care
Act, 1983; http://www.acts.co.za/child_care/index.htm: 22/5/2003). HIV/AIDS pandemic
compounded the challenges as children become affected and infected. Once the family
was located then children and the family were re-oriented to prepare and accept the
return of the child. The process of re-unification started with allowing families to visit
their children in shelters and children visiting their families at home during weekends.
4.2.3 Shelter Services
Basic needs of children include food, clothing and a place to sleep. Shelters
endeavoured to meet these needs. Efforts were made to stabilize children emotionally
and physically while initial assessment followed and children counselled. Shelter D is
the only shelter where children from the street directly were placed. Shelter A also
admitted children directly from the streets combining with accepting children from the
first phase shelter. Children in the first phase shelter had two options open to them on
entering the shelter they either leaved the shelter or stay promising to improve
behaviour that made possible to be transferred to another shelter. If children chose not
to stay in the shelters, they were free to return to the streets. Programs of intervention
involved attempts to re-unite children with their families early to prevent children
becoming street wise and where that was possible. Once children were above the age
of 16 years, shelters were not able to keep them because they had become young
adults. A suggestion to start skills training for children was made with an aim of
providing children with skills that could give them hope for the future by empowering
them to be employable or be self-employed. However, the project required the approval
of various government departments and was taking considerable time to start, (Basson,
2001 :3). The process of children's referrals to other shelters depended on the needs of
children and shelter's residential capacity. Other services included formal and informal
learning opportunities. Formal schooling was arranged with surrounding public schools.
Health care and counselling, health education including HIV/AIDS awareness, where
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