Online Reporter
Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu [email protected]
MATABELELAND South province has intensified efforts to move vulnerable children out of institutional care and into family homes, with 107 prospective foster parents already trained and vetted as part of a drive to make foster care the first option for children in need of protection.
The Department of Social Development has expressed its intention for more children to experience the stability and support of a family environment rather than growing up in institutions.
The initiative has seen 107 prospective foster parents from across the province being trained and vetted with the assistance of SOS Children’s Village, while a further 80 prospective foster parents are still to undergo training.
The province has 44 registered foster parents, with 40 children having been placed under foster care. Matabeleland South provincial social welfare officer, Mr Criswell Nyakudya, said the department was deliberately shifting towards foster care as part of efforts to strengthen child protection.
He said the objective was to ensure that children who could not remain with their biological families were given an opportunity to grow up in a family setting.
“We continue to appeal to communities to register as foster parents as a home environment can help children to develop better. We’re trying to register more foster parents because we’re trying to encourage fostering of children as compared to putting them in institutions as we want to cultivate an atmosphere where they grow up in a family set up,” he said.
Foster care provides temporary family-based care to children who cannot remain with their biological parents because of various challenges affecting their families.
Mr Nyakudya said the department was particularly targeting children currently housed in children’s homes for possible placement with foster families.
“We want to divert towards fostering children instead of institutionalising them as part of enhanced child protection,” he said.
“These children also deserve to have the experience of growing in a home environment with a mother and siblings, which they can’t experience in an institution.”
The department has said institutional care remains important for children requiring social protection, but foster care provided an opportunity for children to experience family life.
According to the department’s second-quarter report presented during a Matabeleland South provincial child protection committee meeting in Gwanda, the province has six children’s homes housing a combined 103 children.
These are Takalani, Ekhaya, Kip Keino, Sacred Heart, White Water Sai, Plumtree Reception Centre and Beitbridge Reception Centre.
The department is supervising the institutions to ensure they comply with national residential care standards.
“Child protection requires provision of a harmonised and standardised systematic framework as well as linkages for the care and protection of children,” reads the report.
The department is also strengthening child protection mechanisms at community and school level. Child-led child protection committees have been resuscitated in schools, while community child protection committees have been revived in Bulilima, Beitbridge and Gwanda districts.
Parenting training was conducted in Bulilima, Mangwe and Beitbridge, while caregivers of children with disabilities were educated on child rights.
The department is also mainstreaming disability across its child welfare and social protection programmes.
Beyond foster care, the department assisted 121 children through an emergency fund, covering needs such as transport, healthcare, birth certificates, food and medication.
A total of 48 715 children were also enrolled under the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM), against an annual provincial target of 62 525.
Mr Nyakudya said strengthening child protection required the participation of communities and other stakeholders.
“As a department, our objective is to provide access to social welfare, social protection, justice and health systems. To prevent and respond to child protection concerns in the province via the national case management systems and to create a holistic referral pathway, which has a feedback mechanism as an integral component of the system,” he said.
Mr Nyakudya said the department would continue encouraging more families to register as foster parents so that vulnerable children could be raised in safe and supportive family environments.
He said institutions had played an important role in caring for children in need, but the department wanted to increasingly complement institutional care with family-based alternatives.
-@DubeMatutu
