Government-funded programmes and services for vulnerable - Unicef

Government-funded programmes and services for vulnerable children in SA
Social welfare services policy and service delivery gaps
A review of the 2009–12 Strategic Plan (DoSD 2009d) perhaps tells us more about the
gaps in the current framework than the social welfare programmes and services that are
currently available through the DoSD.
The Strategic Plan set a number of goals to fill the gaps that exist within the social
welfare framework by 2012, including:
● developing norms and standards for the delivery of social welfare services;
● finalising the Social Services Professions Bill so as to increase the pool of social
service providers and to regulate standards of service;
● developing legislation by 2010/11 on social services for people with disabilities;
● developing statutory services for youth- (formerly child-)headed households;
● developing a framework for statutory services for children living and working on the
streets;
● developing regulations for the prevention and treatment of substance abuse;
● developing a national policy framework to guide the development and
implementation of prevention and early intervention programmes.
In essence, the last commitment to the development of a national policy framework
for prevention and early intervention programmes points to the primary gap that we
are currently facing in the delivery of integrated developmental social welfare services.
The focus in the last 10 years has been on reactive statutory services, rather than on
prevention and early intervention. In fact, not only have the last 10 years seen a neglect
of prevention and early intervention programmes, but also of statutory services (DoSD
2006). Social services have been forced over the last decade to adopt a ‘make do’
approach, dictated by resource limitations rather than need, priority, or statutory and
internationally ratified obligations (DoSD 2006).
The failure to invest adequately in social services led to a variety of gaps and
inadequacies preventing realisation of the ‘priority, or statutory and internationally ratified
obligations’. A key gap is the acute shortage of social workers and social auxiliary
workers to provide statutory social services (DoSD 2009d). The number of social workers
required to implement the Children’s Act exceeds the number of registered social workers
by 55 000 (Barberton 2006: 95). It has been suggested that greater use must be made of
auxiliary social workers. However, the shortage of auxiliary social workers is just as acute.
ECD programmes and services
The DoSD acknowledges that access to ECD services and programmes, one of the few
active prevention programmes, remains a challenge, especially for children made vulnerable
by poverty and HIV/AIDS. This is so for a variety of reasons (DoSD 2009d).
First, few ECD facilities are equipped to provide the level of sustained early childhood
support appropriate to the developmental needs specific to vulnerable young children.
There are some ECD practitioners who provide extra support; however, it does not
appear to be a standard or widespread practice (Biersteker & Rudolph 2005). For
example, most ECD practitioners are ill equipped to deal with children living with HIV/
AIDS. Their psychosocial and developmental needs are not being met because of a lack
of appropriate assessment and development programmes, and due to insufficient attention
being paid to the stressors experienced by the caregivers of HIV-positive children
(Markovitz 2008; Potterton 2006). There is an urgent need for appropriate training and
development, for example, in non-discrimination in ECD centres.
70