Durban North Baby Home leaps into baby crisis care project

IN South Africa babies are orphaned and abandoned at alarming rates. This often leaves Child Welfare and baby homes bursting at the seams.

This is indeed the case for the Durban North Baby Home, launched by Joanne and Bjorn Teunissen in 2015.

The home can provide a safe haven for up to six babies at any given time, however, the house mother, Joanne often receives calls from North Durban Victim Support Team at the Durban North police station or the South African Police Service with crisis cases.

“Public holidays are often the most dire. Last year, during the Easter weekend I received calls for nine crisis babies. During weekends and public holidays the Child Welfare department is closed, leaving very little options for the babies,” she said.

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With nowhere else to go Joanne and her team must act quickly to make space for these babies in need.

And so, out of need to assist these babies the Durban North Baby Home in conjunction with the Peace Agency, launched the brand new initiative, Kangaroo Parents at the weekend.

“Our biggest motivator was the sheer number of babies in need. Because of the costs associated with opening a new baby home it was just not feasible. We believe with this project we will be able to make a bigger impact,” she said.

With the blessing of Durban Child Welfare the Durban North Baby home will be identifying potential ‘crisis parents’.

“We will be doing all the initial screening and will then transfer our findings to the department to screen the final approvals,” said Joanne.

So far, the project has garnered interest from over 30 people.” Many of our volunteers have often said they would like to do more. And we believe there are many other people out there who would be keen, but might be scared off by the paper work. Our aim is to make the process less daunting,” she said.

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The people who are then registered as crisis parents will receive a call when there is a baby in need.

“The home will supply the crisis parents with all the items they need for the baby they will be caring for, including food, clothing, nappies, toys and car seats. All we require from them is to give the baby their love, care and attention,” she said. Joanne emphasised that the project was not about foster care or adoption, but rather “crisis care”.

“The paper work for this project essentially encompasses 90 per cent of the paper work, so eventually we hope to extend this project to include long-term foster care and adoptions,” she said.

“Additionally we hope the project creates awareness on the orphan crisis in South Africa, adoption and the work of the baby home. Most of our support comes from word of mouth, so the more people involved the more we can create awareness,” she said.

Child Welfare had not commented at the time of publication. Contact Joanne on 082 773 0781 or via email on jo@peaceagency.org.za.

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