If you are pregnant and need help, see the Process Guides and outline for Pregnant Moms and then message us on Facebook or contact us.
Abandonment: We educate about alternatives such as safe relinquishment of a child, to prevent the trauma of abandonment and possible death. We intervene to remove abandoned children to safety and walk them through the statutory process.
To see what steps we follow for Abandoned Babies, see Process Guides.
Vulnerable children: Wandisa protects children who are vulnerable or at risk of abuse, abandonment, or neglect by intervening where necessary to remove them from harm and placing them in temporary safe care or foster care. Where birth families or caregivers are in crisis or concerned about a child, Wandisa provides counselling, support, and guidance as to what options are available.
Temporary safe care & foster care: We screen, train, and equip adults to provide short to medium term alternative care for children in need. Our Team works with the courts to place children and supervise these placements while assessing what options would be best for the child.
Permanency Planning: We believe children need security, consistency, and permanency: we work towards seeing every child grow up in family care and regard institutionalisation as the last resort.
Where issues arising in removal have been resolved, sustained, or improved over time, and this would be best for the child, we explore the prospect of reunification.
Where care by birth family is not possible or not in the child’s best interests, we look at other options for permanency, such as adoption.
Three criteria must be met in adoption.
- The Prospective Adoptive Parents must be fit and proper and suitable and eligible to adopt;
- The child must be adaptable;
- The placement must be in the best interests of the child.
Wandisa screens assess and prepares Prospective Adoptive Parents.
Wandisa conducts a full investigation into the child’s history and circumstances of the birth family. Our social workers submit written reports to Court as part of the Children’s Court inquiry. Where a child is adoptable and permanent placement would be best for that child, Wandisa seeks to find a family for that child, either from the Prospective Adoptive Parents, we have screened or through networking and collaborating with other organisations. Wandisa then matches the child with that family, facilitates the local adoption, and works to transition the child into the family’s permanent care.
See the Process Guides for what steps are taken where a child is placed with a local adoptive family.
Where suitable options cannot be found within South Africa and where this would be in the child’s best interests, Wandisa works with accredited entities in other countries who finalise the Suitability and Eligibility of the Prospective Adoptive Parents and through those collaborations, Wandisa finds the child a family who could best meet the particular needs of the child. For more details on our intercountry programs, see collaborations.
