Social development dept leaves at least 128K kids out in the cold

Tens of thousands of orphaned, vulnerable and displaced children under the foster care system have been left without grants by the department of social development (DSD).

And many more face the same fate due the department’s failure to deal with the backlog in the national foster care system.

During a portfolio committee presentation in parliament last week, the DSD revealed that by November 2019, more than 128,000 court orders would have lapsed, meaning that the applicable children would no longer qualify for grants.

“We don’t know whether those children are still safe or whether the situation has improved with regards to reuniting such children with their families.

“This is also indicative of the fact that the DSD has not visited the child nor monitored their situation in a period of two years,” said Bridget Masango, Democratic Alliance (DA) spokesperson of social development.

She said according to section 158 of the Children’s Act, the children’s court was allowed to review a foster care order every two years, unless the court specified a shorter period. Section 159 of the same Act demands that a foster care order issued by the children’s court lapsed on expiry two years from the date of issue.

Therefore, an orphaned child had to be placed in the child protection system to qualify for the foster care grant.

“The primary concern of the foster care system is to offer support to children in need of protection from abuse and neglect, but without these orders, social workers are unable to guarantee the safety of these children and they are unable to reunite them with their families.

“This means that for orders from a children’s court to be up to date, and to ensure the safety of a child, orders must be backed up by constant monitoring and treatment,” said Masango.

The purpose of foster care is to provide care and protection to children in a nurturing, safe and healthy environment, with positive support.

It targets children who are found to be in need of care and protection by the children’s courts, placing them in the care of a cluster foster care scheme, unrelated person or a family member other than their biological parents.

In its presentation to the portfolio committee, the DSD said the shortage of social workers, social work supervisors and canalisation officers inhibited the provision of foster care services.

“The social workers rendering generic services are carrying high caseloads which is noncompliant to a ratio of 1:60. This results in officials feeling overwhelmed, burnout and some social workers eventually leave the profession,” said the department.

It also said that inadequate budget allocation for NGOs rendering child protection services meant these organisations were forced to scale down their services.

What must the DSD do?

Zita Hansungule from the Centre for Child Law in the faculty of law of the University of Pretoria said even though the department of social development said concerted efforts were being made to address the foster care grant backlogs, the portfolio committee expressed serious doubts about meeting the November 2019 deadline set by the High Court in Pretoria.

“If backlogs still exist by November 2019 and no plan has been put in place to address these backlogs urgently, the children receiving foster child grants due to the lapsed orders will fall off the system and will no longer have access to the grants that are used to provide for their basic needs,” said Hansungule.

She said even more concerning was the fact that little clarity was given on a comprehensive legal solution, as required by the high court.

“The crisis we are currently in will continue unless a comprehensive legal solution is developed and implemented that offers a long term solution.

“The department needs to urgently, clearly articulate and implement the plan requested by the portfolio committee,” said Hansungule.

How provinces are failing vulnerable children

South Africa’s failing national foster care system for vulnerable children who have been left without child foster grants is evident throughout the country. This is how things are playing out in the various provinces:

• Free State: The Free State foster care backlog by July 2019 amounted to 8,630 children and it was estimated that it would not be able to meet the November 2019 deadline.
• Northern Cape: Northern Cape has a backlog of 1,391 cases and social workers are overworked. One social worker serves more than 10,000 cases. The major challenge is found in the rural areas where one social worker is expected to serve 10 villages.
• Limpopo: As of August, Limpopo had a backlog of 6,568 foster care cases with the majority of the cases in the Sekhukhune and Capricorn areas.
• Mpumalanga: The foster care backlog in Mpumalanga by August was 1,323 cases that needed to be dealt with by November. There are 305 unemployed social workers in the province.
• Eastern Cape: The Eastern Cape had a backlog of 8,651 cases by August and the provincial department does not have enough social workers to deal with the backlog.

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