Family and Child Care Definitions

Definitions

• Family is where two or more people are connected through consent, lineage, legal means, adoption, and emotional bonds
• Family is within a socio-economic system
• Family intends to be permanent
• Family members share responsibilities, set goals, and function as a unit that develops and maintains morals, values, and norms through rules
• Family care aims to improve the quality of life and social functioning of a family
• Family policy creates planned action to maintain and develop family life
• Child and family care is a service that aims to improve the quality of life and social functioning of the family as a unit
• It considers both internal and external family members
• Child care protects children and enhances their social functionings through social care
• Adoption is when parental responsibility is permanently transferred to someone as a judicial arrangement
• Foster care provides temporary substitute care within the family circle for children whose parents cannot care for them
• Services are provided to the parents, with the goal of returning the children during a specific time
• Welfare services recognize that while the family should be the focus, children's needs must be considered
• Children are best helped when the family is the focus of attention
• The family is the intimate environment where children are best understood, helped, develop, and form their basic competence and identity
• The family provides life-cycle resources while family members are supported through services
• Family service programs may be remedial and educational, addressing personal issues

Family Structures

• A Nuclear family is a father and mother, with or without children
• A Single-parent family has a mother and child or father and child
• A Child or youth-headed family is headed by one child or youth
• A Gay family is where same gender individuals live together with children
• An Extended family is a traditional family consisting of aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents, and children living together
• A Grandparent-headed family is when grandparents live with their grandchildren
• Foster families consists of a child placed through required statutory processes
• Adoptive families consist of a child placed through required processes
• Non-household families consists of friends staying together
• Combined or reconstituted families are where a biological parent with a step-parent makes up biological children and stepchildren

Characteristics Of The Family

• Family groups characterized by intimacy, dependency, relative stability, and rules
• Families possess group-related boundaries that separate them from other groups
• Families have identities that may change
• Family groups perform supportive tasks, share responsibilities, and share the same resources
• Family members can be blood-related
• One or more people live under the same roof with a common goal to function as unit
• The family is a system with subsystems that may or may not live with each other

Child Welfare Service Systems

• Kadushin's services are the oldest field of service in social work, built on family intervention
• Supportive services aims to strengthen parents ability to meet their children's needs
• Supportive services are counseling for children in their homes, family service agencies, community mental health centers, protective services for children who are abused or neglected, and services for unmarried parents
• Supplementary services enhance the care children receive or compensate for parental inadequacies or limitations
• Supplementary services: creches, daycares, homemaker services, and social security grants
• If support and supplementary services fail, substitute services are used

Substitute Services

• Substitute services replace parental care based on a child's needs via foster family homes, adoption, or the permanent family arrangements
• Other options in substitute care; group homes, emergency shelter, care, youth care centers, children's institutions and residential treatment centers

Policy Documents

• Policies are chosen actions that come after public research and discussion and affect large numbers of people
• The UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) is an international policy that creates guidelines for service rendering to children
• South Africa ratified and must follow
• African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ARCWR) creates service-rendering guidelines focusing on culture for African children, ratified by South Africa
• South African policy documents consist of the White Paper for Social Welfare, the ISDM (Integrated Service Delivery Model), and the Developmental Welfare Policy
• White Paper Number 42 aims to strengthen and preserve families so they can provide an environment for the development of their members

Functions Of The Family: White Paper Number 15

• Children's well-being depends on the ability of families to function properly
• The factors essential to the healthy development of families: imparting values, creating security, instilling discipline, creating behavioral limits, and a sense of belonging

Challenges Of Families: White Paper Number 16

• It highlights challenges that families may face in South Africa: alcohol and drug use, a lack of community and family support, communication and relationship problems such as arguments and intimate partner violence, and a lack of knowledge to discipline children

Special Groups Of Families: White Paper Number 43

• Remember social services are made available to families in need and to promote and strengthen family life
• Some families are vulnerable and at risk and need more attention
• Families with children under 5 are an example of special groups, because children are not visible
• Single-parent families are another example, usually woman-headed, with only one lower income expected
• Families with chronic diseases and disabilities are least likely to be working; another family have to look after this family member
• Families caring for the aged lack resources such as clinics, particularly in rural areas

Guidelines For Programmes For Families and Children: White Paper Number 44

• The rights of children and families should be protected
• Poor families and children should be the priority for information and resources
• Social welfare must empower and improve social competence in family members through programmes and capacity building
• All children and families should be able to have equal access to social welfare services
• Interventions focus on statutory services and prevention and protection services
• Interventions should involve all family members in promoting well-being
• Problems should be solved using a developmental model

Priority Programmes In Promoting Family Life: White Paper Number 45

• The goal of these programmes is to develop the life skills of family members
• They focus on remarriage and marriage preparation, problem-solving skills, programmes to address domestic violence needs, parenting programmes for new parents, and sexuality and substance abuse education at school

Preschool and School Going Children: White Paper Number 46

• This focuses on the needs of children aged 0-9
• Because not every child requires the same needs, programmes such as after-school care, centre and home based services, stimulation programmes, and family education, nutrition and health will be available

Policy: Developmental Welfare Model

• This is background knowledge on the social treatment model that was used in apartheid
• Its sole remedial focus was individual work and casework
• It was discriminatory, racially and enforced through gendered notions of care and support
• The service delivery model was focused on statutory services

Overview of Model Features

• The developmental welfare model focusses on service delivery through welfare pluralism, a rights-based approach, movement from micro to macro services, social and economic development, and participation
• It involves policy advocacy, facilitating access to claim rights through services, promoting rights through educating people, and protecting rights through legislative implementation

Integrated Service Delivery Model For Developmental Social Services

• In order to increase social functioning, services must be rendered on several levels, and the client should be able to enter at any level
• To ensure the client reintegrates, the service provider must collaborate with them to determine their current functioning and create an intervention strategy

Levels of Intervention

• Prevention strengthens and builds the capacity of the client
• At this level, the client is functioning adequately, but there is a chance that at-risk behavior may emerge later
• Early intervention prevents at-risk clients from having to use statutory or intensive services
• Statutory intervention strengthens and supports the clients involved in court cases, and the client is removed from their residence
• Reconstruction and aftercare provides alternative care and reintegration to the family and community, also enhancing their social functioning and self-reliance

Legislation Documents

• The Constitution is the legal document that directs service providers to uphold children's rights
• A child, in South Africa, is someone under the age of 18
• It protects children against harm and provides statutory procedures
• It advocates prevention and early intervention through innovations
• The legislation promotes strategies to improve the care and development of children, thus needing early interventions

High-Risk Families' Characteristics

• Determine high-risk individuals by identifying characteristics of high-risk families
• Macro level characteristics include 81% of children living in poverty, the increase in citizens needing security, and high incidents of early school leavers
• Lack of resources and services contribute to poverty
• Social cohesion involves the interaction between personal and individual networks
• Incidences of violence and member mobility can affect cohesion

Family Risk Factors

• Single-parent and big families may experience financial stress, leading to physical abuse, neglect, and emotional abuse
• Domestic violence results in an increase in child abuse and neglect
• Lack of resources, transport, and hospitals lead to an increase in child abuse and neglect
• A lack of support and isolation may lead to an increase of abuse and neglect
• A lack of parenting skills and knowledge of child development leads to child abuse and neglect
• Substance abuse increases the risk of child abuse and neglect
• Low-esteem or involvement in a child, or low father involvement is a personality factor leading to abuse
• Mother experiencing postpartum depression and struggling to bond at birth may cause harm

Overview Of Children In Different Circumstances (High-Risk Children)

• In accordance with White Paper Number 18, children denied human rights and whose growth is impaired are defined as children in difficult circumstances
• This leads to groups of at-risk children in social welfare (defined in number 19-40): children in divorcing parents, preschool children, children in home care, children with chronic diseases, children with disability, children in labor, children with nutrition problems, street children, and children experiencing substance abuse, abuse, and neglect
• Children age 3-6 moths are particularly vulnerable
• A lack of daycare centers and adequate facilities lead to the creation of these services

Characteristics of Those At Risk Include:

• An increase in out-of-home services, with many abandoned children not knowing who they are
• There are not enough facilities to identify disabilities
• A shortage of day care facilities exist for children and limited support exist for parents
• Increased psychological and economical stress affects guardians of children with HIV/Aids or chronic diseases
• Child abuse and neglect is growing faster
• Those "on the street" are poor and forced into urban areas, unlike those "of the street" that are permanently deserted

Characteristics of Those At Risk Include:

• Child labor is when children, under the specific age of 15, exploit an employee - abuse of labor laws
• Family advocates work to assist and identify conflict between parents and children that negatively affects them
• Nutrition problems come in the form of stunted growth and discrepancy

Case Study Analysis

• The presented case study example identify high-risk factors in a study with Thabo, an 11-year-old
• Macro-level risk factors involve transportation and limited resources within a Gugulethu primary state school
• Meso-level risk factors involve mother being 29, four children, in a big family, and a single parent
• Individual-level factors involve head injuries, substance abuse by parents, and low-cost housing, erratic support from children,

Family Preservation Services

• These services are time-limited, generally delivered in a client's home, and intense
• They were created to preserve family bonds, keep the family together, and prevent out-of-home placements
• They help stabilize families who may have status offenses, delinquencies, uncontrollable acts, substance/sex problems, etc
• In short, family preservation is designed to remove the risk of harm in households, instead of outside them

Goals of Preservation Services

• Stabilize the crisis, facilitate use of helpful resources, increase competencies/coping skills and allow the child to maintain relationships and remain safely at home
• Family preservation developed in opposition to foster care, due to defaults in home services, no sense of permanence, and parents were viewed as part of the problem
• Separation is detrimental to children and leads to greater problems.

Preservation Services

• Services are brief, comprehensive, and intensive, taking into consideration the wishes of the family
• Services include crisis counseling with families who have problems that destabilize their stability
• Only provide these services only for high-risk cases, crises-oriented
• The services approach is concrete (clothing bank) and clinical (skills training)
• Frequent home visits are conducted with a small caseload and staff work flexible hours
• Community-based services and support adults in their roles as parents

Children's Act Overview

• The Children's Act prioritizes strengthening and counseling the families so that keeping children in care is possible
• This act is to give certain rights regarding family care, social services, and protection from maltreatment
• This act is in line with international guidelines, and promotes physical, moral, and emotional safety for children
• It strengthens the community and protects them from threats - protects against violence and harm
• It is for the promotion of the well-being and the protection of children

Definitions: Child Abuse and Neglect (According to White Paper for Social Welfare)

• Physical abuse occurs if it is not physically harming the child, and it is a repeated event
• Sexual abuse occurs when the child is involved with an older person, adolescent, with or without the family's consent for gratification
• Rape is sexual behavior enforced through violence
• Within family relationships that are forbidden by law, incest occurs
• Using objects for various parts of the body in molestation
• Symptoms and signs of EM (Emotional Maltreatment) are difficult to prove, yet result in speech or physical disorders and can occur in many family members.
• Neglect occurs voluntarily through problems with basic needs, and can be physical or emotional
• Child Prostitution; occurs through intermediary family members
• -CHILDPORNOGRAPHY: involves the recording of child pornography
• A child is in need of care is, IS (in The Children's act of section 150) if there is visible support, abandoned with behavioral problems.
• It is important to return them with the right care.

Substitute Care: Children's Act

• A child is in need;

1. Hospital abandonment
2. Uncontrollable behavior from caregiver.

• Assess the situation by the social worker, not immediate removal, if they deem this is needed you can. If a child has mental and/or physical harm this is important with the caregiver

• Is where they MAY be.

1. Exploited
2. Harm
3. Risk

Foster Care: ART167

• Placement-Children has order of the court
• No older then 6 months in temporary

Overview of the Children's Act relating to Alternative Care.

• Temporary foster care cannot exceed six months
• To guarantee longevity of the child's life
• By demonstrating cultural respect
• It needs to be registered with the board to have a suitable person who fits with standards
• A person is unsuitable to be in the care of the foster system if the child has any of the following;
• No more then 6 in care with siblings (etc) as long as (under the court's orders
• Child and you center is residential care facility for MORE (THEN) 6CHILDREN
• No longer then 2 years will occur in care unless cannot connect to biological family

Children's Act (Adoption Definitions) Article 228

• If a child's placed in a facility for a PERMANENT location this is considered adoptions
• Protect/nuture environment with pos support
• Who has the right to adopt?*
• Guardian/ has no caregiver
• If the child is an Orphan
• Most common reasons for adoption of any persons.

1. Husband and wife
2. Partnership life
3. Family unit with common household Biological/foster father is over his over to those who are not in contact with him or in contract If the prospective parents have not any of children is fit and proper to be in the place and older then 18 Assessment will determine who is in the best of the cultural fit

If they:

• Biological
• Undisclosed-Usually (baby or toddler)
• Openly (contact with families letters and images)
• How to achieve;
• Legal
• Meetings And (check marital with physical health is good)
• Mother-have then 60days to change if necessary

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