RESIDENTIAL CARE
Children deemed to be in need of caring environment and a sense of security are placed with us through the Children’s Court. These children are mostly orphaned, abandoned, and/or affected by HIV/AIDS & come to us from environments characterised by poverty, emotional trauma, neglect, domestic violence, physical & sexual abuse, and alcohol & drug abuse.
Our residential care facility operate 24/7 & caters for up to 85 children in a safe and secure homely environment that spans 6 houses on a property in the leafy suburb of Parkhill Gardens, Germiston. Each house can accommodate between 8 to 14 children.
Our children are cared for by trained and registered professional child and youth care workers. Each house of 8-14 children has 3 childcare workers, they are our ‘Warriors of Hope’ and the children’s main care givers. We have a multi-disciplinary team to support our children which include social workers, psychologists and core essential services staff all ensuring that all our children’s needs are met in full.
Our Psychological Therapy and Assessment Centre situated on site at Epworth Children’s Village provides services to children and their families within the residential care environment. A community outreach program is also in place as well as a private practice. These psychological services include assessments, therapy & group work and are an integral part of the family reunification and foster care programmes. We also offer learning support and actively work at developing skills for daily living with our children in residential care as well as those the community children we are involved with.
We have various residential care programmes that are designed to provide a holistic yet individualised care plan for each child. Our goal through these programmes are to achieve family reunification and re-integration into the community. We work holistically with children, their families and the broader community to “be the gateway between brokenness and healing.”
Our ultimate goal is to provide for the social, emotional, physical, psychological, spiritual, and educational needs of each individual child in a caring, secure and therapeutic environment that will enable children in our care to attain their full potential in and so doing develop and empower these children to reach their full potential so that they can one day become contributing members of society.
OUR RESIDENTIAL CARE PROGRAMMES:
- Residential Treatment Programme
- Family Reunification Programme
- Early Childhood Development Programme
- Foster Care Programme
- Independent Living Programme
Residential Treatment Programme – Families in crises. Intensive therapeutic intervention is provided for the children and their families in view towards return placement of the children to their families within a period of two years. The therapeutic interventions include psychotherapy, play therapy and family therapy.
Family Reunification Programme – Provides long term residential care and family reunification for children in need and provides intervention aimed at placing them back into the community in the shortest possible time frame. This programme works with families who have experienced long-term dysfunction and require long-term intervention. Our sole purpose is in keeping families’ together wherever possible. We work closely with parents by providing them with assessments, therapy and parental skills. We also meet with the family every 3 months to make sure we are still on track for family reunification.
Early Childhood Development Programme – Provides for the special needs of children in residential care through early learning development, occupational therapy, remedial and medical intervention for children infected by HIV/AIDS.
Foster Care Programme – aims to recruit, screen and train potential foster parents and to prepare the children for foster care. (Children are either orphaned, abandoned, vulnerable and or special needs children.)
Independent Living Programme – provides long term residential care for children who are unable to be reunited with their families or placed within their extended family network and/or are not suitable candidates for foster care. This programme has emphasis on life skills, education and training in preparation for independent living in addition to maintaining strong community ties wherever possible.
PROGRAMMES ACTIVITIES
To support the care programmes we have the following programme activities.
Daily Care and Personal Hygiene – Epworth assists the children to learn to care for themselves, choose appropriate clothing and take care of their personal hygiene.
Developmental – The individual child has their own IDP (individual development plan) and will have the opportunity to develop emotionally, socially and psychologically within a warm and caring environment that best meets their needs.
Education – Epworth ensures each child is able to obtain educational opportunities that meet both their abilities and potential. We also provide assistance with special educational needs and learning/studying support. Epworth transports children to over 10 different schools in the Bedfordview and Germiston neighbourhoods.
Life Skills – Epworth provides regular life skill programs to develop self-confidence, team work, leadership, communication skills and other skills depending on age.
Nutrition and Optimum Health – The children receive a well-balanced diet and maintain good health. Some also need medical attention, including ARV treatment. Epworth supplies each child with four meals a day. We also supply home parcels for children that go home as most of the families come from destitute environments.
Recreational – Epworth has large grounds, a basketball court and swimming pool which gives the children the opportunity to relax, play and simply enjoy themselves and have fun when not doing chores or school work.
Spiritual upliftment – The children have a need (and right) to maintain ties to their spiritual and/or religious heritage or have new opportunities to develop their spiritual needs.
Sports – Epworth encourages the children to participate in sport and extra-mural activities at their individual schools as well as with other Non-Profit organisations.
Therapy and Counselling – Epworth works with a multi-disciplinary team where emotional resolution is attained through therapy. Each child is assigned a therapist to help them resolve past trauma and foster better coping mechanisms.
Tracking and Tracing program – as some children come to Epworth with no family history or background, our social & childcare workers are tasked to find their family in the community in order to communicate about our residential care programmes.