Too many teens are forced to leave state-run homes when they are not adequately equipped with life skills
Ufrieda Ho
For most teenagers 18 is the magical year of driver’s licences, legal beers and the right to vote. But for teens in welfare, 18 is also the year they’re officially adults – ready or not.
There is now growing concern that using age as the main determining factor to stop state-welfare support is grossly limiting. Too many teens are forced to leave state-run homes at the welfare cut-off age before they are adequately equipped with practical life skills. They also have no stable emotional support system on which to fall back on.
In countries such as Russia many teenagers turned out on to the streets resort to prostitution and crime to eke out a living. There, children at the age of 17 are turned out of orphanages without money, a family to return to or a place to stay. It’s expected that six out of 10 girls will fall prey to sex traffickers before their 18th birthday.
Locally, many children end up on a similar path or become part of a lost generation unable to start building a healthy lifestyle.
“Of course these teenagers will have a bad life out there if there are not appropriate programmes to prepare them,” says Mirriam Mazibuko, a social worker at the Orlando Children’s Home in Soweto.
Mazibuko says they recognise a need to provide more than just hand-outs and basic care. “As practitioners we have not been proactive enough in helping teens in this regard. We will need to look jointly at this and encourage the government not to cut children off but to look at the individual circumstances of each child.”
Orlando Children’s Home teaches hairdressing and locksmith skills and organises for local businesses to take teenagers on as apprentices.
“These children are at the bottom of the pile when it comes to finding work,” says Muriel Farren, director of the Johannesburg Children’s Home (JCH) in Observatory.
Farren says children in homes are already disadvantaged by not growing up with an ordinary social structure. They often have fragmented and dysfunctional families and this affects their school grades. Many of the children at JCH will not study beyond matric. This means the home cannot motivate for continued welfare support for these children.
The JCH’s bid to make it easier for teenagers to integrate seamlessly into society as adults takes the form of the Halfway House. Older children are moved into the Halfway House, which is a cottage on the JCH premises. They are supervised but have to take responsibility for cooking their own meals, doing their own laundry and taking care of other household chores.
The home uses its own funds to give 18-year-olds a six-month period in which to find work and accommodation while still having the safety net provided by the home. They are also taught how to draw up a budget, a CV and how to prepare for a job interview.
But the corporate world has not been supportive in helping homes place children in the job market. Often, Farren says, children are also desperate to shed the “welfare” label and are wary of being singled out for help in the working world. “We need to establish some kind of discretionary resource network with the corporate world to make it easier for them.”
Leroy (18) is in the Halfway House programme. JCH sponsors his college fees and he is completing a course in business studies. At the end of the year he will have to leave the home. “It is hard because I have been here since I was eight and this is my family,” he says. He will stay with a host whom he has known for the past year.
Leroy says he needs better job-creation opportunities so he can make it on his own. He says the government should give a year’s extension to child support so that there is a reasonable grace period for 18-year-olds.
As it stands the Department of Social Services sticks to the rigid rule that once a child turns 18 or has completed secondary schooling he or she no longer qualifies for state money.
Mbulelo Musi, the department’s head of communications, says the department is looking to change legislation pertaining to children and state support through the South African Law Commission. This will include a revision of using age to determine a welfare cut-off point. “Through the Department of Education we are also trying to find ways for these learners to have equitable access and opportunity to study at a tertiary level.”
The department also wants to bring the private sector into the picture to help with job creation for the youth.
Musi says the preliminary report on changes to the legislation is expected out next month and will be open for public comment next year.