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As a lecturer in Social Work at the University
of Cape Town (Department of Social Development),
Patrick has been involved in many transformational
exercises. He recently conducted a workshop with
the staff of the Childline centre, Wynberg.
This workshop was a small
start, but given the dedication and enthusiasm
of the Childline staff I met, I can see great
things, meaningful things, transpiring.
Patrick Smith
‘It’s no news that the problem of child abuse
is growing in South Africa. The numbers speak
for themselves. A simple maths model shows that
there are over 4 million people in the Western
Cape, with a large portion of this population
falling within the Cape Town region. Through media
reports, we are being made increasingly aware
of the number of children who are abused within
this population alone. The question any organisation
involved in child welfare needs to ask itself
is, how many people are able to avail themselves
of the services offered? Often they are not within
reach of the service provider, or otherwise, there
is another service provider already operating
within a certain area. But bottom line - how many
children, of those that we know are being abused
do we get to? The answer is, not many. And bear
in mind those we don’t know about, where the child
abuse has not been reported.
‘I asked the Childline staff to do some true
soul searching, to look deep within themselves
and at Childline as an organisation and to ask
some difficult questions.
• How many children is Childline reaching?
• To what degree are they reaching those children
who are not part of the service structure offered
by Childline?
‘Once again, the answer has to be, not enough.
‘The next and most obvious question to ask was,
what can we do to change the status quo, to provide
a service that functions appropriately within
the South African context?
Keeping these thoughts in mind, I asked the Childline
staff to brainstorm, with a view to shifting their
perceptions, both of themselves and of the way
in which the organisation currently operates.
‘Next, we looked at the ideal service provider
and identified the fact that the services offered
should be appropriate and accessible, there should
be no language barriers and the life experiences
of the children who are being treated should be
given serious consideration. In other words, we
need to look at the way in which the service is
being delivered.
‘The third step of the workshop involved looking
at alternative therapeutic approaches, to consider
moving away from one-on-one therapy as a sole
means of treatment, and seeing what other strategies
could be brought into play. To heighten awareness
of the problem of child abuse, there must be effective
methods of moving into communities and educating
people from the inside out. One-on-one counselling
is very important, of that there is no doubt,
and to treat one client successfully is always
a triumph. But maybe, we can also look at transforming
counselling methods, so that more people can be
helped. The number of children crying out for
help is so overwhelming that at times it seems
crippling. Issues can no longer be dealt with
using a single technique; a multi-pronged approach
is called for, so that as many children as possible
can be reached as effectively as possible. Group
work, community work, community education, psycho-education
could become the first steps here. After these
have taken place, the need for further, more intensive
counselling can be identified - and clients can
be referred for more specialised treatment.
‘Looking at all of these factors, we then looked
at ways and means of extending the services currently
available so that they can become accessible to
greater numbers of people. Here, we discussed
forming partnerships with, inter alia, schools,
faith-based organisations, women’s groups and
the police, each of whom have programmes and structures
in place. In areas where there are no Childline
centres, we looked at ways of moving into the
communities - using centres such as libraries
and school halls as bases from which to operate.
They shall beget and
rear children, handing on the torch of life from
one generation to another.
Plato (c. 427-347 B.C.),
Greek philosopher.
‘Various points were raised during the workshop
session. One of these was that although child
abuse is often associated with poverty, cognisance
must be taken of the fact that it happens in all
sectors of society, whether affluent or poverty
stricken. In many instances the child being abused
cannot trust his primary care-givers - as they
are often the perpetrators.
‘The next stage in the workshop involved asking
the counsellors and social workers to do a needs
assessment.
• What are the needs of the greater community?
• What is lacking?
• What can be done to empower people?
‘Traditionally, social workers work within an
institutional setting where the client comes to
the service. This can lead to a rather insular
situation, where the service can find itself set
apart from, rather than part of, the broader community.
This can, if a different approach is used, be
turned on its head. Instead of waiting for the
community to come to the service, the service
can take steps outwards, moving into the community
and becoming part of it. If this doesn’t happen,
only the few people who can get to the service
provider are assisted – either because they are
demanding the service or because they have the
resources to get to it - but those who receive
the service remain just a small drop in a very
large ocean of people in desperate need of help.
‘Can we ever afford the luxury of saying that
we have too many services? Never. What we can
strive for rather, are partnerships, where different
organisations share their skills and work together,
learn together, within a community, to provide
as wide a range of services and options as possible.
This would provide people with choices, for at
the end of the day, people in need should also
be given a choice when deciding how they are going
to deal with their situations.
‘And so, in this workshop, there was great emphasis
on marrying needs to resources, and a great deal
of honest evaluation. Looking at an established
organisation which already plays a pivotal role
and asking what more it can do is challenging.
- What do we offer, both as individuals and
as an organisation?
- How effective is our outreach programme?
- To what extent do we work with the community
as opposed to for them?
- To what extent is the community able to claim
ownership of processes embarked on?
- To what extent has the community been involved
in the development of these programmes and how
sustainable are they?
- Through ownership comes sustainability. How
good is it for a community to have everything
done for them?
- Could this lead to a sense of immobilisation?
- Would things move forward in a more sustainable
way if there was greater integration between
the organisation and the community, and, once
having started to move, would it gain and be
sustained by its own momentum?
‘This in turn led to more tough and demanding
questions as we looked at the ethos of service
delivery - and the context in which this is delivered.
- How can members of the community be encouraged
to use services constructively?
- A person who has been deprived of the opportunity
of learning the skills needed to drive a process
cannot be asked to suddenly take control. Is
there a need to learn how to do this in a controlled
environment, and once having learned, can the
reins be handed over to allow communities to
practice self-care in an independent fashion?
‘Some people can be asked to look at their problems
psychoanalytically, to determine what they can
do to help themselves. But what of the person
whose primary concern is finding enough food to
feed a family on a day-to-day basis? Enough money
to get to work, day-to-day? If survival issues
are fundamental, how much capacity and emotional
energy is left for self-examination? Bearing this
in mind, I asked the Childline staff to look at
ways in which they could work with communities
- towards making their situations more stable,
less precarious. For it is only after basic needs
have been met that other needs can be addressed.
‘And so we had to look at walking the walk as
well as talking the talk, and find honest answers
to questions that centre around basic needs.
- To what extent do service providing institutions
reach to the level where they are addressing
basic needs?
- To what extent does Childline do this?
- To what extent does a coaching role come into
play, allowing people to gain power to empower
themselves.
- How appropriate are the current methods being
used?
- To what extent do they work, and for how many
people?
We find a delight in
the beauty and happiness of children that makes
the heart too big for the body.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882),
U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher.
‘There’s an old Chinese proverb, which is often
quoted. Give a man a fish and he has food for
a day, teach him to fish and he has food forever.
I like to add a different spin to this. To start
with, some people need to be given the fish, so
that they can develop a taste for it. Once they
have seen how good the fish is, then they will
want to learn how to fish for themselves. People
need to be useful, to be of service to others.
Through a joint process of learning and working
together, of discovering exactly what it is that
the community needs, we can utilise and mobilise
the skills and abilities of people in the community.
In this way, doors are opened, instead of labels
being applied and stereotypes reinforced. (Take
the ‘nosey’ neighbour who knows everybody’s business.
She may well be someone who could become productively
and happily engaged in her community - if she
is given the chance.)
‘It becomes a case of realigning with present
day needs. I asked the Childline counsellors and
social workers to consider the recommendations
made by the Welfare White Paper, which asks that
prevention rather than intervention become a primary
approach.
- What is our reality?
- Is our reality in line with the reality and
perceptions of the broader community?
- Have we fallen into the trap of labelling
people in order to make their problems more
manageable?
- Do we have to follow one set of therapeutic
modalities or can we look at using a good solid
eclectic approach where the individual is seen
holistically, not as a problem, but as a part
of his/her community?
‘This isn’t a one-off process. There’s a continual
need to keep probing, to keep asking, to keep
evaluating - and follow-up workshops are helpful
in this regard, as are meetings with communities,
with bodies working in and for communities.
- Can you think of another organisation with
whom you can work in partnership?
- In places where there is no Childline centre
can you identify an alternative base within
a community that Childline could use?
‘Taking part in a workshop like this often means
that people who are used to working within a defined
area, within the boundaries of a established way
of doing things have to turn preconceived ideas
upside-down, sideways - to look at new angles,
new methods and approaches. Being challenged to
change, to try different approaches can often
make people angry and insecure. Not so with the
Childline staff. The response was amazing - bearing
in mind that I was asking them to do some radical
rethinking. Many of them mentioned that they had
been grappling with similar issues and questions
on their own. Thinking, is there another way?
A few people needed more time, to process all
the ideas and information. They talked of the
future, of planning, of examining services offered
to see how these can be best delivered. All of
this led to lively debate, and healthy interchange
of ideas and concerns. Teasing out answers to
these tangled and often very taxing questions
was an exciting process. Childline acknowledges
the need to be absolutely relevant; their thinking
is line with the need for change. This workshop
was a small start, but given the dedication and
enthusiasm of the Childline staff I met, I can
see great things, meaningful things, transpiring.’
For further information,
contact the Childline Centre on
+27 (0)21 762 8198
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