Abstract
In order to proactively bring about change, it is critical in a post-apartheid context for South African social workers to appreciate how colonial and apartheid forces have shaped the inherited welfare priorities, structures, legislation, policies and practices. It is as necessary also to identify stories of resistance as these offer hope and alternative possibilities. Authors such as McKendrick (2001), Patel (2005) and Loffell (2000) have tracked many aspects of South African welfare history. In its submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission – a body set up to formally acknowledge past injustices with the goal of bringing about political reconciliation – the welfare sector set out how it had contributed to historical discrimination and wrongs (Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 1999). While these narratives provide the framework for the development of child welfare in South Africa, relatively little is known about its particular history, especially its earliest roots. Beukes and Gannon (1999) and Allsopp (2005) have attempted to explore the origins of that profession in the child and youth work field. Badroodien (2001) examined the extensive impact of one institution, the Ottery School of Industry, on “coloured” youths and their families. Scordillis and Becker (2005) recount briefly the history of adoption practice in South Africa. Some of the child welfare societies have been able to provide sketches of their agency history. In this article the author attempts to add to the child welfare record, gathering the existing strands of literature and inserting the stories that emerged in her doctoral research (Schmid, 2008b
Highlights
In order to proactively bring about change, it is critical in a post-apartheid context for South African social workers to appreciate how colonial and apartheid forces have shaped the inherited welfare priorities, structures, legislation, policies and practices
What is most evident from the timeline is that, firstly, securing sufficient funding has been a perennial concern for South African child welfare and, secondly, that the demand for services has consistently increased, groups of vulnerable children being added over time
While the dominant story pertains to how child welfare developed in response to colonial and apartheid directives, and as the author has previously argued (Schmid, 2010), affirms an overwhelming child protection discourse, it hints at alternative, less visible stories
Summary
In order to proactively bring about change, it is critical in a post-apartheid context for South African social workers to appreciate how colonial and apartheid forces have shaped the inherited welfare priorities, structures, legislation, policies and practices. In this article the author attempts to add to the child welfare record, gathering the existing strands of literature and inserting the stories that emerged in her doctoral research (Schmid, 2008b) As part of her doctoral studies, which were concluded in 2008, the researcher reviewed almost 200 documents up to 2007 pertaining to South African child welfare (including government policies and agency materials), examining in particular those of six child welfare agencies representing urban and rural contexts as well as established and neophyte organisations. Since the demise of apartheid social work practitioners have been concerned about how past efforts have been interpreted, wanting a validation of the positive aspects of historical welfare interventions in addition to the critiques of how welfare work intentionally and unintentionally supported the colonial and later apartheid agendas (Patel, Schmid & Hochfeld, 2012) This author hopes to provide a critical overview of both narratives, raising questions about some of the yet untold stories of South African child welfare. The article concludes by considering the central threads emerging from these narratives
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