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A short introduction to the key components of successful care reform based on lessons learnt from Eastern and Southern Africa
Although care reform is well established in some parts of the Eastern and Southern Africa, many countries in the region are just beginning their care reform journey. This short paper is aimed at these contexts. It explains what care reform is, the different components of care reform, why care reform is important and how to start a care reform process. The paper is accompanied by a …
Engaging with key stakeholders is an essential part of any transition and must be handled with tact and wisdom. Located in South Africa, the organization Beautiful Gate began its ministry to protect street children and later grew to provide residential programs for children in need. Yet, as they began to learn more about the needs of children in families, they decided to shift away from residential care and expand their services to include the families of the children they served.
As Beautiful Gate broadened and prioritized the role of families, they communicated family strengthening as a…
Beautiful Gate was established in 1994 by a Dutch missionary couple who simply desired to do what was “just, good, and right” for children. It began as a children’s home for children living on the streets in the suburb of Muizenberg in Cape Town, South Africa. In 1999, at the request of the government, a second location was opened in the neighboring township of Crossroads as a hospice for children dying of HIV/AIDS. The hospice eventually moved to a new site in the Lower Crossroads area in 2004. The larger site made possible additional community services, including a medical clinic, community…
People with disabilities have the right to live in the community, according to Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. However, more than a decade after the adoption of the CRPD by the UN and nearly global ratification, children with disabilities continue to be placed in institutions in every region of the world. Worse still, low-middle income countries that have never had systems of institutionalization have started to build them.
In 2017, the CRPD Committee adopted general comment No. 5 on Article 19 on living independently and being included in the…
This country care review includes the care-related Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Committees' recommendations on the issues relevant to children's care are highlighted, as well as other care-related concluding observations, ratification dates, and links to the Universal Periodic Review and Hague Intercountry Adoption Country Profile.
ABSTRACT
Globally, regionally and in national contexts, institutionalised care has been receiving wide scholarship, debates, discourses and criticisms, with some various scholars questioning the relevance, appropriateness and effectiveness of this option to children’s care and protection. South Africa and Botswana are perceived as two success stories in Southern African region in terms of championing children’s rights, especially those relating to the care and protection of OVCs. This study has, through an immense literature review analysis explored: the role of OVC care…
ABSTRACT
Institutional care has remained an option for children who lack visible means of care and protection. However, in many settings, the quality of care which children receive has been alleged to be detrimental to their growth and development. The present study, through an extensive review of literature has: explored and reconceptualised institutional care, considered the dynamics of institutionalization, effects and impacts of institutionalization on OVCs, such as educational attainment, socialization and psychosocial impacts. The research has also discussed the…
In the face of the burgeoning AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, there is widespread concern that responses to increasing numbers of orphans are resulting in a proliferation of orphanages across the region. This unease emanates from the view that care for children –orphaned or otherwise – in a ‘home’ and ‘community’ environment is ideal. Institutions, on the other hand, are noted to impact negatively on children, to operate as ‘magnets’ for children growing up in poverty-stricken environments, and to be disproportionately costly. Arguing that residential care violates the principles of the…
The study observed 6 institutions, 3 registered, 3 unregistered, and evaluated financial sustainability, methods of managing care, impacts on children, whether the unregistered institutions are serving a need, and options for unregistered institutions. The article outlines the needs and rights of the child, as well as various methods of intervention such as home-based care and community-based support. The article also outlines case studies from each institution within the study.
The study found that financial sustainability is connected to governance and care issues, but…