Cape Town Multi Service Centre

General information

OUR PROGRAMMES

1. Residential Facility (Child and Youth Care Centre)

Cape Town Multi Service Centre is registered with the Department of Social Development as a child and youth care facility for boys between the ages of 10-18years old who are in need of care and protection services. The facility serves as an emergency placement for the interim or until the Children Court inquiry is finalized. Once the social worker has explored and assessed all the options available to the child within the community, the social worker will then open a Children Court Inquiry and recommend that the child be referred to a place of safety pending finalization of placement. During the finalization process of placement, the matter is referred to the social work agency in the child’s community. This agency should then render the re-unification services to the child and his family. Cape Town Multi Service Centre will work with the agency to ensure a sustainable outcome for the child. In more than 90% of cases, the child that the organisation engages with has a bad scholastic background due to the child’s anti-social behaviour in the school setting, lack of school attendance, dysfunctional homes, etc. Children are faced with emotional challenges due to low self worth, low self esteem and lack of motivation in the challenging environment. Our aim is to integrate the child back to the community and back to an educational structure to improve on his current circumstances. Children participate in various programmes at the children’s home to ensure that they develop the ability to function in a healthy environment.

1.1. Group work
The social worker facilitates groups with children. The objective of this technique is to allow the child to reflect on his experiences. Children are able to empathize with one another’s pain and so find coping skills in creating positive outcomes. In this environment, the child has an opportunity to talk about hurt and pain and understand what happened in the past. The child collectively looks at the various possibilities that the world has to offer and thus develops the ability to take responsibility for change.

1.2. Education
It is compulsory for every boy who is referred to our organisation to be placed in an educational structure. If the children are placed at Cape Town Multi Service Centre, they are put into a mainstream school if their age allows them. If they cannot attend mainstream schools, they will be placed in an ABET school.

1.3. Residential Life Skills Programme
These projects are used as a tool to assist with the child’s personal development. Projects vary from life skills, individual counseling and an adherence of basic chores responsibilities. Experiential learning consists of arts and craft activities, sporting trips, as well as camps and outings that include referrals to access specialized services.

2. Early Intervention and Prevention Services

2.1 Community Contact Offices - Clarke Estate, Netreg and Kalksteenfontein

It was identified by the organisation that most of the children that we interact with originate from the communities of Clark Estate, Kalksteenfontein and Netreg. The vision of the launch of three pilot offices was to make services available and accessible in the community with the help of the community. One of the services provided is to render preventative and support services for social challenges to the school community. We thus engage in intense networking with educators, caregivers and other community based projects.

2.2 Holiday Programmes

The team engages in school holiday programs in each area for children at risk, where more than 150 children attend per day. The holiday programs run in July, October, and December every year. The children participate in group activities for their respective ages. Stakeholders have the opportunity to address the children, such as the South African Police Services, the Department of Health, heroes in the community, etc.

2.3 Life Skills in communities

We offer weekly life skills programmes, inclusive of anger management, self-awareness, risky behavior, and resilience to prevent children at risk from ending up living on the streets or being removed from their homes.

2.4 Parenting Skills programme

We offer this programme to reach and engage with the parents of children that are participating in our programmes. We teach parents about children's development, how to use positive discipline methods, how to communicate effectively, etc.

2.5 Referrals

We refer children and parents from the communities we work in, who are in need of statutory intervention to designated child protection organizations such as Badisa, ACVV and Child Welfare.

3. Social Work Intervention

This programme is aligned with the ethics of the social work profession and encompasses the holistic objective of the organisation.

4. PLAYSCHOOLS

We have started two play schools, Vrolike Groepe in Clark Estate and Kabouter Drome in Netreg. We offer an early childhood development programme for children whose parents cannot afford to pay crèche fees. The children are then given two meals a day for free. The play schools operate five days a week from 08:30 to 12:30.

STUDENT PRACTICUM PLACEMENTS

1. Cape Town Multi Service Centre is able to give students a perspective on the reality of daily life for the children placed at the centre and those who are still at risk in their communities.
2. The Assessment and referral: Social work students are given the opportunity to make use of the organisations structure to do their practicals.

VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers are very important to Cape Town Multi Service. The organisation welcomes volunteers and support staff to add value to the services of the centre. Please feel free to contact us should you wish to get involved.

1. There are 3 volunteers that visit the Vrolike Groepe playschool every Thursday. One of the volunteers is Joanna Du-Preez, a retired social worker with a Masters in Play Therapy, facilitates, along with the other two volunteers, creative learning through play with the young children at Vrolike Groepe Play School.

2. Simeon, who owns Zion clothing and skate shop in Observatory, along with his partner Hayley, have hosted workshops on traditional t-shirt screen-printing to some of the older boys in the past. Zion encouraged the children from the centre to excel in their schooling, using skating as a medium to keep them busy and away from peer pressure.

3. Holiday parents: The organisation welcomes families that are interested to act as holiday parents to children who are unable to return back to their community.