Documentary analysis of the legal and policy framework of transracial adoption in South Africa

Transracial adoption was legalized in South Africa through legislative reform as South Africa moved into a post-apartheid era of non-racialism. Transracial adoption offers one option of placement for Black children in need of alternative care. However, adoption continues to face obstacles to implementation, including cultural obstacles which impact on placement of Black African children. This paper reports on adoption statistics on national adoption in the period 2013–2021 and a documentary analysis of the current legal and policy framework governing transracial adoption. We cover international instruments, local laws, including the Children's Act of 2005, and relevant policy documents designed to facilitate the implementation of adoption. We show that the law is supportive of transracial adoption, but that policy documents offer a somewhat contradictory stance to the practice. The lack of success of transracial adoption as a child protection strategy does not lie within the legal framework but may lie in the difficulties in interpreting and implementing the range of different policies by those implementing these policies. More research into the implementation practice of these bureaucrats is required to understand the underutilization of transracial adoption as a placement option for Black children in South Africa.     

Adoption in South Africa: trends and patterns in social work practice

This paper reports findings from a research study on adoption in South Africa conducted in 2009. The research included secondary data analysis of the South African National Adoption Register to establish trends and patterns of adoption in South Africa between 2004 and 2009, and primary data collection through qualitative interviews with key informants in public and private social welfare services to explore attitudes, knowledge and experiences of social work practice related to adoption. The quantitative findings report the number of national and international adoptions along with trends and socio‐demographic patterns of national adoptions. Qualitative findings report on social work practice, systemic barriers and social worker attitudes as barriers to improved social work practice around national adoptions. The paper highlights comparisons to adoption literature in the USA, a country with a similar legislative framework and cultural complexities, but significantly more resources for implementation. Recommendations are offered for social work practice, national data collection and policy implementation efforts to support efforts to increase adoption.     

The Children's Delphi: considerations for developing a programme for promoting children's self‐concept and well‐being

This study is premised on the notion that intervention programmes aimed at improving children's well‐being should be inclusive of activities which promote children's self‐concept. Using a child participation framework, this study aimed to explore children's perceptions of the nature and content of intervention programmes aimed at improving children's self‐concept within two impoverished communities of the Western Cape, South Africa. The Delphi technique was followed with a group of 10 children between the ages of 10 and 12 years who were considered to be knowledgeable experts and authorities on matters affecting their lives and well‐being of children. They suggested that intervention programmes include a focus on safety, the provision of social support, the creation of opportunities for learning and for play and the provision of basic material needs.     

A critical review of the developmental approach to disability in South Africa

The article describes the policies, legislation, institutional structures and programmes of the developmental welfare system for physically disabled people in South Africa that have developed since 1994. In so doing, it examines resources and constraints and suggests ways in which improvements might be made following the experiences in the first 12 years of social development in South Africa. The author believes that it is timely to pursue this topic given the barriers experienced on the ground where social developers are attempting to empower and improve the circumstances of physically disabled people. Thus, this article should be of interest to policy makers, social planners, practitioners, human rights activists and disabled people alike.     

Changing faces: the story of two Canadian street youth shelters

This study addresses the relationship between street youth shelters and formal child welfare systems in Toronto, Canada. Two case examples, Covenant House (CH) and Youth Without Shelter (YWS), are examined through archival material, participant observations and structured interviews with 21 front-line and managerial shelter workers. The findings suggest that both shelters have formed reciprocal and unequal partnerships with formal child-welfare organisations. The consequences of such an arrangement are threefold: (1) CH and YWS no longer possess an internal environment to support traditional street youths; (2) both shelters have strayed from their original intentions; and (3) many shelter workers express frustration within this dynamic. Several recommendations are put forward to support the survival of youth shelters: advocating increased government daily rates; seeking a balance between building a legitimate public image and an alternative street youth reputation; making every effort to house hard-core street youths; and building innovative internal programmes to act as referral points.     

Progress of the social service professions in South Africa's developmental social welfare system: Social work,and child and youth care work

This paper examines the progress of the social service professions delivering developmental social welfare in South Africa, a subject we have followed closely over the last 20 years. Being policy-driven, developmental social welfare stemmed from expert social analyses that resulted in technically oriented solutions, including the broadening of social service professions. Twenty years on, it is hard to see developmental social welfare, as envisaged in government policy, in action, since the practice reality does not differ drastically from the prior apartheid system with the government's heavy reliance on social security as a poverty-alleviation measure. The expanded social security budget has led to underfunded services and a crisis for social service professionals. This paper focuses on the regulated professions of social workers, and child and youth care workers. Our examination of critical issues for these occupational groups revealed that South Africa still has a long way to go in building a strong social service workforce.     

The Child Support Grant in South Africa: a social policy for poverty alleviation?

The article analyses the Child Support Grant (CSG) in South Africa as a measure of poverty alleviation. Introduced in 1998 amid a great deal of controversy and fanfare, the CSG was a means-tested cash benefit for poor children between the ages of 0 and 6 years, most of whom were located in the poorest of South Africa's nine provinces, i.e. the Eastern Cape, Kwazulu-Natal and Limpopo (formerly known as the Northern Province). South Africa's unique history is discussed to show how the CSG became an important poverty alleviation measure. Debates surrounding the introduction of the CSG are discussed, not least its reliance on effective inter-sectoral collaboration, research and the provision of developmental welfare programmes.     

The Emperor's new clothes: South Africa's attempted transition to developmental social welfare and social work

This article critically interrogates the depth and quality of change of post‐apartheid welfare policy and social work practice towards a social development paradigm against the background of inequality and poverty in South Africa. It asks several questions: what kind of welfare system has the current welfare dispensation created? How far has it moved from a residual, ameliorative system to an institutional developmental system, in keeping with the developmental welfare paradigm? To what extent can residual provisions be transformed into developmental processes? What conditions are necessary for this to happen? The answers to questions such as these provide the basis for assessing South Africa's new developmental processes. The article highlights the fundamental contradictions in social development policy imperatives, which call for a marriage of economic and social considerations, and the internal contradictions across and within various welfare policies. Further, it argues that the government does not have the political will to bear the costs of the substantive change that the move towards developmental social work requires, choosing instead limited, individually targeted and ameliorative measures, such as increased social security spending. Thus, it suggests that ideological critique, consciousness raising and participation in public policy debates remain crucial for those who seek long‐term solutions to inequality and poverty in South Africa.     

A case study on a generalist service delivery model for street children in Durban,South Africa: Insights from the capability approach

This paper adopts a qualitative case study on the generalist service delivery model of I‐Care, a Durban‐based non‐governmental organization that works with male street children. Fifteen face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with 10 I‐Care employees and 5 former street children. A focus group was set up with I‐Care employees. Although existing literature is forthright about a generalist approach for children at risk, it remains unclear how to implement this approach in practice. This paper reviews a continuity of 5 fundamental social work practices for working with street children: (a) outreach work, (b) child–family and child–community mediation, (c) transitory care centres and programmes, (d) brokerage, and (e) mentorship and follow‐ups. The study analyses how these practices contribute to the capability and agency expansion of the street children and outlines challenges that service providers and former street children experience. The main challenges acknowledged are balancing between the agency and protection of street children and the adaptation of children to street life. The study proposes intervention strategies to overcome these challenges.     

Supporting familial and community care for children: legislative reform and implementation challenges in South Africa

This article critically evaluates important legislative reforms in South Africa, which, at the height of the AIDS pandemic, are intended to reduce the need for removing children from their families or communities. In a textual analysis of the 2005 Children's Act and the 2006 Children's Act Amendment Bill, the shift in focus from individual interventions to a developmental approach incorporating prevention and early intervention is explained. New family service and alternative care orders such as partial care, shared care, cluster care and support for child-headed households are described. Although these creative solutions have considerable potential, there are gaps in the legislation that require supplementary wording. Drawing on the work of researchers and commentators, it is also shown that an inappropriate approach towards implementation has commenced, which harms rather than assists children. Recommendations are made for improving implementation that may be of relevance to other countries faced with similar challenges.     

The social services response to unaccompanied children in England

In England, social services departments have a duty to provide care and protection to unaccompanied asylum seeking children from the point they arrive in the country. In recent years, research studies have identified a number of practice and policy issues of concern regarding the social services response to unaccompanied children. This paper focuses on three broad issues that emerge from the literature. The paper explores research concerns associated with (i) the referral and assessment process, (ii) the use of the child welfare legislative framework, and (iii) a number of issues arising from the provision of placements and other support offered to unaccompanied children. The findings of the research reviewed demonstrate that there are indeed clear grounds for concern. However, this paper argues that the evidence base is relatively weak and that as a result we know very little about the nature and context of the social work response to this group of children and young people.     

Social work in South Africa at the dawn of the new millennium

The article examines recent developments in social policy and its implications for social work education and practice in South Africa. It traces the changes from the birth of democracy in South Africa to the dawn of the new millennium as these crucial years marked the beginning of a new era in South Africa's welfare history. It examines the challenges to social work and provides an example of the integrated, holistic developmental interventions, which are needed to combat social problems such as crime, AIDS and poverty. It ends with an examination of the implications of developmental welfare policy for social–work education as social workers are called to address mass poverty, unemployment and social deprivation through greater use of diverse social work methods, such as advocacy, community development, empowerment, consultation, networking, action research and policy analysis.     

社会政策视角下的流浪儿童救助保护

我国政府历来重视对流浪儿童的救助保护,也取得了相当的成绩,但该领域的政策体系尚存缺陷与不足,难以满足社会发展的需要。立足现实,从社会政策的视角,探究流浪儿童救助保护政策的现状,并提出有关对策建议,以期建立健全该领域的社会政策框架。     

(Mis)framing Higher Education in South Africa

The question of how to make higher education more inclusive has been a central concern in South Africa and elsewhere over the past two decades. However, in South Africa there remains a disjuncture between policy aimed at promoting inclusivity and the experiences of students and staff in the higher education sector. In this article, the relationship between equity of access and equity of outcomes and the expectations that follow from these policy imperatives are examined from the perspective of Nancy Fraser's normative framework of social justice. In particular, her notion of misframing is used to analyze the current situation in the higher education sector in South Africa. The article concludes that a focus on individual higher education institutions is not sufficient to gain a perspective on the social arrangements required for participatory parity in higher education; and, in fact, such a focus is an instance of misframing and thus a form of injustice.     

The relevance of institutions and people’s preferences in the PSNP and IN-SCT programmes in Ethiopia

The effective implementation of social protection interventions is key for achieving positive change. The existing literature mainly focuses on issues related to programme design and impact, rather than the factors that influence the emergence, expansion and provision of these programmes. This article builds on the recent literature that indicates that the quality of institutions and people’s preferences play an important role in the implementation of social protection. It does so by using Ethiopia and its Productive Safety Net Programme – one of the largest social protection programmes in sub-Saharan Africa – as a case study, thereby contributing to debates on how to implement social protection more effectively, particularly in settings of widespread poverty and relatively low levels of institutional capacity. Based on primary qualitative data, the article finds that greater institutional quality at the local level is associated with the more effective provision of social protection. The ability of community members and social protection clients to voice preferences can lead to adaptations in implementation, although the extent to which this occurs is highly gendered.     

Assessment of the developmental needs of children in need: Estonian child protective workers' case reflections

Child protective workers must be able to evaluate children's developmental needs in order to assess problems and delays. Skilful and comprehensive assessment leads to outcomes for children that promote their well‐being and development. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study on a sample of Estonian child protective workers that investigated their assessments of the developmental needs of children in cases with child protection concerns. Only half of the child protective workers considered some dimension of the child's developmental needs in their assessment, suggesting a profound need to incorporate a developmental assessment framework and implement training of such in Estonia to increase child protective workers' competencies to conduct consistently comprehensive assessments.     

Working the ‘spaces’ between policy and practice: the contributions offered by resilience theory and action research

The policy‐practice dimension often presents challenges particularly in the policy arena of child well‐being. Policy designers identify risk factors and design programmes intended to develop protective factors in areas of need. The 2004 Australian Communities for Children (CfC) initiative aimed to improve the social, health and educational outcomes for young children living in socio‐economically disadvantaged localities. Its method was to engage local community members to contribute towards developing protective factors. Rather than considering this national–local arrangement, an unworkable alliance, we examine the performance of CfC through three examples and demonstrate how resilience theory and action research can assist this programme achieve its social inclusion aims and well‐being outcomes. We choose not to disregard policy programmes like CfC, rather we emphasize the possibilities offered when working these complex spaces involving multiple and inherent contradictions. The spaces that often exist between the policy and its implementation are rethought to allow a greater opportunity for the growth of innovation and change.     

The progress of child protection in South Africa

Child abuse in South Africa is a serious and escalating problem. In this article, the writer reflects on the response of the South African government and civil society organisations to the problems experienced by practitioners in their management of child abuse during the past decade. This response must be understood within the context of South Africa's transition from a past characterised by state-enforced discrimination, exclusion and inequity. The article focuses on the child protection service system and draws attention to a review conducted in the nine provincial departments of social development across the country. It discusses the recommendations of the review in light of international literature on child welfare and lessons learnt over the past ten years. Despite the progress in policy formulation, implementation remains a major problem regarding child protection in South Africa.     

The post-1994 transformation of social work in South Africa

This article examines the transformation of social work in South Africa in response to the transition to a developmental welfare approach. Always moulding and shaping itself in response to its social context, social work in South Africa, as elsewhere, is a reflection of the broader political landscape. In South Africa the social work profession has struggled to assert its independence and become self-regulating. It is unique in the Western world in that since 1978 it has been regulated by a legislatively constituted statutory council. While the profession has tried to transform itself in the new democracy, outside pressures have found it wanting and deeply divided. Thus, despite progress in other areas social workers have not yet been successful in forming a strong, united professional association and this severely limits its ability to lobby politicians and advocate on behalf of clients. It seems, however, that the tide is turning and social workers are gaining recognition but, once again, the challenge remains deciding on the extent to which the profession cooperates with the government's agenda for change. Social work educators took the lead in setting education standards in response to higher education policy and are also playing a part in devising practice standards through their involvement in the social work board which falls under the umbrella of the Council for Social Service Professions. However, education and practice are somewhat out of step and professional unity remains a pressing issue on social work's transformation agenda.