Enough, soon enough? Changes in residential care

Abstract

Transformation in residential care for young people has been under the spotlight since 1995. The IMC report In whose best interests? surveyed 56 of the 77 state-run residential care facilities for children ( including 5 reform schools, 17 schools of industry and 30 places of safety). Its findings were unequivocal - there is a serious crisis in residential care services for young people. Important problems identified included the fact that almost 25% (n=941) of the children in care surveyed "N= 5769) were deemed to be in inappropriate placements by the personnel of the institution and 1798 (31 %) of the children were placed in provinces other than the province in which they ordinarily lived (IMC 1996b:9). The staff employed to perform child and youth care functions ,were seriously under-qualified with only 11 % holding qualifications in child and youth care work and only 54% of senior personnel holding similar qualifications (IMC, 1996c:24). A serious racial imbalance in staffing was also identified, with the majority of staff employed being white, meaning that children who would normally use an African language as their first language were at a serious disadvantage.

This survey and other investigations concluded that the average per capita cost per month of R2327 to care for the youth and children in government-run residential care was questionable as an effective or efficient use of resources. Unequal distribution and allocation of resources on the basis of race were further exacerbated by racial disparities in terms of general budgetary allocation, standard of care, methods of discipline, extent of freedom, length of stay, contact with families and communities, access to appropriate education, developmental and treatment programmes and human resource allocations (IMC, 1996c:9-13). The result was wide-scale policy development initiatives aimed at transforming the child and youth care system. Part of the proposed change entails pressure to reduce the proportion of resources expended on residential care and increase the proportion of resources expended on early intervention and prevention. This principle has been actualised in the new Financing Policy for Developmental Welfare Services (I 999), the implementation of which should be completed by 2004 but which has barely started in some of the country's provinces.