National Child Protection Week 2023 is commemorated from 28 May to 4 June 2023 under a five year
theme “Let us protect children during COVID-19 and beyond”. Child Protection Week is now a 365-day programme of action with monthly themes and the campaign this year, focuses on RISIHA, a community-based prevention and early intervention programme, aimed at moving children from vulnerability to resilience. This programme also ensures that the family stays together, with the provision of the core packages of services offered to families by various social service professionals.
The entire campaign is about creating safe spaces where children are protected from violence, child abuse, neglect and exploitation. The campaign also strengthens and improve the well-being of exploited children by increasing their ability to understand and cope with the trauma, effects of exploitation and to mitigate the impact of exploitation on their lives. Since the inception of National Child Protection Week in 1997, social service professionals have been at the heart of this landmark annual national week event that focuses on children’s rights. The Department of Social Development is leading this initiative annually and brings together all role-players from the justice, police, health, education, civil society and other key sectors to refocus the country’s collective and collaborative efforts for the creation of a responsive child protection system.
Social workers and child and youth care workers are key professionals in the country’s child protection
system and render prevention, early intervention and statutory services directed and guided by laws such as the Children's Act 38 of 2005, Child Justice Act 75 of 2008, Criminal Procedures Act 51 of 1977, amongst others. Every social worker, social auxiliary worker, child and youth care worker and auxiliary child and youth care workers practicing these professions in South Africa are required to be registered in terms of the Social Service Professions Act 110 of 1978 with the South African Council for Social Service Professions (SACSSP). This registration is also their “license to practice” and confirms that these professionals have the required qualifications and professional standing with a highly valued repertoire of clinical skills, expertise and knowledge regarding factors that have resulted in children’s contact with the child protection system.
The protection of children requires from social workers to work across a range of interventions such as the investigation of the reports of child abuse and neglect, children’s court inquiries, foster care supervision, parental support programmes, probation services to children in trouble with the law, to mention a few.
Similarly, child and youth care workers play a central role in children’s well-being, protection and
professional support in residential care facilities (where children are mostly placed through a court order) and in communities through interventions with children and families, including child-headed households, children living and working on the streets, children in schools, to mention a few. These services do not happen in isolation but as part of a multi-disciplinary team approach with the police, prosecutors,magistrates, medical doctors, nurses, educators and others, each bringing their knowledge, skills and responsibility together in the interest of safety, protection and development of children.
The SACSSP has noted over the past years that more and more social workers and child and youth care
workers are utilised within the education system to provide therapeutic and professional support services to children in schools. A significant number of schools have started to employ school social workers as well as child and youth care workers as part of their professional support teams for children. In school and other settings, their work is not necessarily related to statutory services only, but also deal with issues such as bullying (including cyber bullying), specialist interventions supporting children with emotional and behavioural problems, guidance and support to parents or other primary caregivers, to mention a few.
National Child Protection Week 2023 is also an opportunity for the SACSSP to recognise and appreciate the essential role that social workers, social auxiliary workers, child and youth care workers and auxiliary child and youth care workers continued to play in the lives of vulnerable children notwithstanding the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated risks. We remember with sadness all those colleagues who succumbed to COVID-19 while executing their duties.
The SACSSP commends the tireless efforts and commitment of all social workers, social auxiliary workers, child and youth care workers and auxiliary child and youth care workers committed to protect and improve the safety and wellbeing of “at risk” children and youth. We call on every citizen to work with our social service professionals to create safer spaces and communities for every child to thrive.
We are always reminded of the SACSSP motto during National Child Protection Week 2023:
NON NOBIS – not for ourselves.
ISSUED BY SACSSP COMMUNICATIONS
Enquiries: communications@sacssp.co.za or 073 299 2720
