The Phoenix Child Welfare Agency

This was an amazing place. The work they do (or are committed to do) is just overwhelming. The Phoenix community within Durban is a historically Indian Community of about 800,000 people. This agency is “contracted” with the government to handle all adoptions of abandoned and orphaned children. The Agency also has responsibility for these services in two neighboring communities that include about 1K-2K people each. In addition, they do child protective services for the area and all foster care. The only exception being that they don’t do foster care for children over 10 with behavior issues; those are handled by the state. They also run group programs designed to education on issues related to abuse. They get into the schools and also run a teen program. All of this is done by 12 social work positions.

As we have observed in other settings, there is no way to really control the work that social workers do here. The Phoenix center has their office in the community where they serve so they have a lot of “walk-ins.” Once again, the caseload is often not as it appears and it seems that you tend to serve the needs of the family as a whole.

Add to large caseloads (120 or so per worker), this is a private agency which is only funded 70% through state support. They need to do fund raisers in order to be able to make it through the year. The nature of these fund raisers is simply amazing; the biggest fundraiser they do is a fair that runs for nine days, including two weekends. Just to give you an idea of the magnitude of this event, on one Sunday they have a party for the Children where children get in free. At the 2008 event, there were 2,000 children who showed up! In addition, they a Senior day for the older members of the community. An this isn’t their only event. I don’t know how they do their job and have the time to volunteer to make these events happen. This makes the foster parent appreciation dinner that I helped with look like a afternoon tea!