Social Development
Whether his Department has strategies in place to (a) support families and (b) prevent young people from being recruited to become members of gang?
- Regions of the Western Cape Department of Social Development and 61 NGOs render various services as part of the DSD prevention and early intervention strategy. These services include parenting programmes to parents and caregivers of learners in areas at high risk for crime and gangsterism. The programme themes include a focus on the value of a strong, supportive home environment; how parents can monitor their children for signs of exposure to substance abuse and negative peer pressure; men and boys’ programmes; programmes to mitigate the impact of Gender-Based Violence on the child; guidance on healthy and unhealthy relationships; and promoting constructive and respectful communication.
Other programmes include family preservation and support services, psychosocial support services, mediation, parenting plans and life skills programs, risk assessments and behaviour modification programmes for children and youth involved in high-risk behaviour, and care plans and the monitoring of progress through home visits
- The Department funds school and community-based crime prevention life-skills programmes to learners in areas affected by high crime and gang activity. The programme themes include a focus on negative peer pressure, the cycle of crime and violence, anti-substance abuse, goalsetting and planning, choices and consequences, anger management, conflict resolution, anti-bullying, inappropriate sexual conduct, healthy inter-personal relationships, GBV prevention, behaviour modification techniques, grief counselling, coping strategies, enhancing emotional intelligence, wilderness experiential learning, job skills programmes.
These funded services are also supplemented with holiday programmes that focus on social, emotional, and physical development through structured activities, promoting learning and skill-building outside the classroom, encouraging healthy lifestyles, and fostering inclusion and community connection. Service areas include Hanover Park, Gugulethu, Nyanga, Phillipi, Mitchell’s Plain, Seawinds, Lavender Hill, Ocean View, Khayelitsha, Lwandle, Strand, Delft, Bishop Lavis, Elsies River, Darling, Stellenbosch, Wellington, Genadendal, Greyton. For children at high risk of gang involvement, or already in gangs, the Department provides secure care facilities, which include drug treatment and other rehabilitative programs for children placed by the courts due to behavioural challenges in terms of the Children’s Act, children awaiting trial in terms of the Child Justice Act, or sentenced children. These facilities serve children from all areas of the province.
