More children in need, resources stretched
With the influx of people to Mossel Bay over the past few years, there is more poverty than before.
The rise in food prices has put pressure on the poor. Often it is children who are most affected when there is an increase in poverty, unemployment and social ills such as crime and addictions.
Mossel Bay Advertiser interviewed three charities who help to combat the problems of child abuse and neglect in Mossel Bay.
The Simply Sow Foundation is an NPO, which creates awareness of the need for foster care and places of safety for abandoned and neglected babies.
Foster parents
René Mouton of Simply Sow says: "We support foster parents in need by collecting and donating items such as clothes, baby products and day-to-day necessities."
In terms of socio-economic trends the foundation is noticing, Mouton notes: "I meet more people struggling financially than anything else. Everybody struggles more and more, not just the poor. There are many who used to be fine - people who went to the mall to buy food and clothes and household necessities without worrying too much about their budget."
Mouton says these people are now "shopping at thrift shops for clothes, going to the school clothing bank to buy secondhand uniforms for their children and searching for the cheapest grocery store".
Mouton notes: "There is definitely an increase in child neglect. More and more children are left at their grandparents' homes, either because the parents have to work or because the parents just can't look after the children. They don't have jobs or money and some don't have a place to live."
Funding
She says getting enough funding is the greatest challenge in carrying out Simply Sow's work. "It will probably always be a huge factor and as everybody is struggling, we get less and less support from our community to help those in need. Sometimes the challenge is deciding who to help first. When you don't have money for everyone, who has the greatest need and where do we draw the line because we don't always have enough resources for everyone?"
Mouton says: "Our main focus is to support foster children and children in places of safety. There are at least 10 to 15 foster children every month that we try to support by providing clothes and day-to-day necessities. Because of the large number of other children (not foster), also in great need, we try to help where we can, and we get at least two to three families every month asking for help.
She says the greatest social ills in Mossel Bay are drugs and alcohol addiction, "but I do see that teenage pregnancies have increased significantly".
Mouton stresses: "We will always need more foster homes and places of safety. There are many children needing a safe house for a few months so that the social workers can help their parents. The age group most in need of safe houses is three to 10 years.
Teenage pregnancies
Julie Petersen of Child Welfare Mossel Bay said she had noted an increase in teenage pregnancies, substance abuse, child neglect, child abuse, school drop-outs, domestic violence and poverty.
There was an increase in such cases on Child Welfare's books, she said.
The greatest challenges facing Child Welfare were a shortage of resources, the growth in population, socio-economic issues and biological parents' lack of participation in their children's lives.
In the Child Welfare case load, there was an increase in cases of child neglect, child abuse and exploitation, Petersen said.
Donations were badly needed to meet the needs of the community and the greatest need was among children aged six to 18 years.
ACVV Mossel Bay Social Services also looks after the needs of children in Mossel Bay.
Food, accommodation
Head of the NPO, Amanda Beukes, said: "We are definitely seeing more poverty as the number of people coming to our office asking for food and accommodation increases constantly. The majority of our financial donations are used for food parcels for our families in need. A lot of our cases involve capable parents not being able to provide financially, with regards to food or accommodation and this results in children being in need of care and protection."
When asked what the greatest challenges were for the ACVV, as a welfare organisation, in carrying out its job, Beukes said: "Many of our clients have fixed mindsets about how they want certain things to be handled or how services should be rendered.
"They have different upbringings and set ways on how children are reared.
"Also, there are different stigmas about social workers, resulting in people not being open to the services we provide."
Beukes notes that the ACVV's case load increases constantly, with new intakes and reports.
Prevention, awareness programmes
A positive was that, "the more we focus on prevention services and awareness programmes, the more people are willing to report abuse and neglect of children."
Beukes said: "Children are having behavioural problems from a young age. This has been noticed in the care and contact cases of biological parents already divorced or in the process of getting divorced. Domestic violence is also of great concern."
She said: "More donations, in terms of food and clothes for our less privileged clients are badly needed. We also need more places of safety for urgent removals as well as foster homes for our children in need of care and protection. The age group with the greatest problems is nine to 15 years."