Adoption and lack of social workers are challenges, hears Social Development Committee

The Social Development Portfolio Committee held a meeting with the Department of Social Development on Tuesday, 18 February to discuss its six-monthly report (April-September 2013). During a review of the Department’s performance, MPs noted that although the target for adoptions had been more than met – 735 adoptions registered against a target of 140 (70 adoptions per quarter) - over two million South African children still needed homes. There was also a serious shortfall of social workers.

These issues prompted MPs to ask questions such as: How many people had been screened against the Child Protection Register (CPR)? What was the status of amendments to the Children’s Act? When would the challenge of lack of capacity be overcome and social workers needed to be instilled with the ‘new dynamic'?

Addressing the matter of adoptions, the Department’s Deputy Director-General for Social Services, Connie Nxumalo, said that the Department promoted adoption and there were registers of would-be adoptive parents and children needing adoption. Second amendments to the Children’s Act would be delivered in the current financial year, while inputs were being consolidated.

Nxumalo admitted that the recruitment of social workers and adoption remained challenges. Social workers needed an orientation programme and the curriculum needed review.

Addressing the lack of social workers, the Social Development Minister, Bathabile Dlamini, noted that new strategies, including a drive to recruit retired social workers and social workers employed other than in the state, are planned or operational, mostly in the 1 300 wards identified as most poverty stricken by Stats SA but also including the peripheries of major cities.

This strategy is of utmost importance, as the lack of social workers, coupled with budget pressures and declining resources were cited as reasons for the inability to provide statutory services as required by specific legislation such as the Children’s Act and Older Persons Act.

The Committee wished the Department success in its endeavour to recruit social workers, while the Minister added that the starting point for recruiting and training social workers in the next financial year would be about “approach, confidentiality and trust”. As there were not enough social workers, every social worker had to be accountable for the work he or she had done.

For the full report, click here.