Staff at Girls and Boys Town found that the lockdown did more for the youth in their care then they could ever imagine; it inspired healing and deeper connections.
South Africa (29 March 2021) – When the Covid-19 lockdown hit South Africa in March 2020, many of us shared the sentiment of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger: “There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.”
Amid fear of the unknown, non-governmental organisations like Girls and Boys Town South Africa had to scramble to comprehend how social distancing would affect vulnerable youth in care. In particular, how would it impact on the therapeutic relationships these young people had formed and other relationships they were seeking to heal?
But first care organisations had to ensure the safety of everyone in the care environment and the sustainability of their services. Responsive policies and procedures had to be developed and existing policies reviewed in order to address legislated safety provisions.
For Girls and Boys Town, the deepest concerns centred on the consequences of the required Covid-19 practices for the children, their families and the staff. They were highly conscious of the risk of infection running rampant through the residential campuses across the country and they rigorously applied Covid-19 safety precautions.
Everyone in their care life-space were required to remain masked, sanitise consistently, maintain a social distance of 2m or more, and refrain from group gatherings. If face-to-face contact was required, participants were masked, at least 2m apart and in contact for no more than 15 minutes in a 24-hour period in a well-ventilated environment, preferably outdoors. No exercise was permitted outside of the child’s own home environment and curfews were applied.
All the while, the staff did their utmost to ensure that the growth and development of the children were in no way hampered.
Covid-19 travel restrictions resulted in most of the youth having no direct contact with their families for seven months. The organisation therefore had to review and re-engineer its practices for supporting relationships between young people and their families. The closure of schools for several months meant that youth remained at the therapeutic residential campuses 24/7, with no outings. Staff had to plan and implement novel stimulation programmes. Not only did this mean staff had to dig deep into their reserves of energy and creativity, but additional funds were necessary for these activities.
However, with an intensified programme of virtual debriefings and planning meetings for management, as well as training sessions and programme review meetings, positive outcomes began to unfold in terms of enhancing important relationships for the children.
- Previously high-risk-seeking youth began demonstrating increasingly mature responses to keeping themselves and others safe. They even held those who were less fastidious accountable for their actions. This was quite remarkable from youth who had previously paid little to no heed to interventions regarding their safety, engaging in drug experimentation, for example, and going absent without leave.
- Staff reported deeper, more meaningful connections with youth because of the increased quality time spent together and their shared efforts to combat the Covid-19 “enemy”.
- Youth made significant progress towards their educational, behavioural and emotional treatment goals.
- The organisation began to reach more geographically remote families via its virtual family strengthening and support interventions. These included weekly face-time between young people and their families and daily opportunities for telephonic contact.
Girls and Boys Town’s fundraising, management, childcare and support teams at national level demonstrated the highest levels of commitment, professionalism and grit. No matter what adaptations were required, no matter what the challenges were, solutions were found. However, fundraising still proves to be a great challenge due to our current economic times and we strive to attract more donors to our cause.
The young people in the organisations care demonstrated admirable cooperation and restraint, even when frustrated with exceptionally long separation from their families and severe statutory restrictions. Members of the national and regional boards and volunteers were all-embracing in their support and the loyalty of donors increased the confidence in the organisations ability to stay afloat.
“The sensations of threat and crisis are all too real at the time they first hit us. But productive and meaningful new practice can emerge from what seems, at the time, to be great adversity. Innovation in relational practice – that is, therapeutic approaches to strengthening relationships – can occur in a less than perfect environment. Meaning can be found and created where we allow a lived crisis to transform lived experience.
At Girls and Boys Town we continue to proceed with caution and remind one another constantly that Covid-19 remains as virulent as ever. Many of the crisis-forced learnings will influence practice positively going forward Above all, we will continue to respect the strengths and resilience of our staff, volunteer teams and our youth in care.”
Girls and Boys Town South Africa (GBTSA) was established in 1958 and is a national non-profit organisation that runs proven and successful programmes to strengthen vulnerable youth. Through a combination of interventions GBTSA, on average, assists between 16 000 to 20 000 beneficiaries a year. If you would like to support them, you can do so here.