Epworth Child and Youth Care Centre to close doors on May 31

Epworth Child and Youth Care Centre in Lambton founded more than 105 years ago, announced last week they will be closing their doors on May 31.

This decision comes after a long battle of lack of funding despite exhaustive efforts to secure donors.

Since 1918, it served as a refuge for vulnerable children and families.

Established by the Methodist Church post-First World War to aid war-affected children and families, Epworth later evolved to accommodate children deemed ‘in need of care’ by the Children’s Court, as per the Children’s Act (38 of 2005).

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“The decision to close down comes after careful consideration by the board and management, who have tirelessly explored every avenue to sustain the organisation,” said the home’s public relations officer Roberta Ingrato.

The home accommodates 50 children and 30 staff members.

“The children at the centre, many of whom come from troubled homes, will be moved to other homes,” explained Ingrato.

She said this process has been difficult for all those involved. The home has been part of the Lambton community for years and has always been supported.

“We made efforts to keep our doors open but they were not enough. Even the church that founded the home is heartbroken to see the home close,” said Ingrato.

The home has been operating without funding from the Gauteng Department of Social Development. This caused a hole in the home’s finances from which it cannot recover.

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The home has not received any communication from the department regarding the centre’s application for funding in the 2024/25 financial year, which started on April 1.

GDSD spokesperson Themba Radebe said the department was still finalising adjudication processes, which caused a delay in payment of funds.

“The department embarked on a rigorous NPO adjudication process, paving the way for reviewing and signing of service level agreements (SLAs) with complying NPOs for the 2024/25 financial year.

“The process to invite eligible NPOs to sign the SLAs is now underway. It has been centralised to the DSD headquarters to be coordinated by the accounting officer.

“This process was previously decentralised to officials in regional offices, which is in contravention of treasury guidelines in terms of delegation of powers,” said Radebe.

He said the department received over 1 732 applications, collectively tallying an amount of over R11.4b in financial requests.

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“This amount is far greater than the department’s overall budget of R5.5b. With so many applicants the panellists had a gruelling task to stretch the budget far and wide in response to the needs presented by NPOs,” explained Radebe.

He said several considerations had to be made before the panellists could decide on whether or not funding could be awarded to applicant NPOs.

“This includes physical verification of the NPO at a registered address, observations of services being rendered, and also verification of the compliance status with the national DSD database.

“Other factors include NPOs flagged as non–compliant on the national DSD database, no access granted, or invalid addresses upon site visit.”

He said NPOs that were successful in their application were contacted from the first week of April to make arrangements to sign their SLAs.

Radebe was unable to confirm whether Epworth was one of the successful applicants.