KEVON FELMINE

Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty Chair­man Mar­sha Bai­ley is call­ing on cit­i­zens to do more than sim­ply record and share videos of child abuse. Bai­ley urged them to take that cru­cial ex­tra step and re­port such in­ci­dents.

Open­ing the doors to the au­thor­i­ty’s new Na­tion­al Care and Em­pow­er­ment Cen­tre (NCEC), in Pi­paro on Mon­day, Bai­ley re­peat­ed for­mer South African Pres­i­dent Nel­son Man­dela’s words that “there can be no keen­er rev­e­la­tion of a so­ci­ety’s soul than how it treats its chil­dren.”

She stressed that, too of­ten, CATT be­comes aware of the abuse through the vi­ral videos be­ing shared on­line. But, she said, for many of the na­tion’s chil­dren this so­cial me­dia ex­po­sure is not enough as they con­tin­ue to suf­fer unimag­in­able abuse and mal­treat­ment at the hands of those en­trust­ed with their care and pro­tec­tion.

“While we thank those per­sons for the won­der­ful videos they post, I want to ask you to go one step fur­ther af­ter you post — and re­port the abuse. We can­not be every­where, and we can­not be in every home,” Bai­ley said.

To re­port child abuse, peo­ple can reach CATT’s hot­line at 996 or the po­lice at 999. Bai­ley as­sured the pub­lic that while iden­ti­ties can re­main con­fi­den­tial, the de­tails nec­es­sary to lo­cate and help the fam­i­ly or child are vi­tal for in­ter­ven­tion.

Bai­ley de­scribed the NCEC as more than just a build­ing, say­ing it was a tes­ta­ment to the shared be­lief that every child de­serves the best chance to re­alise their full po­ten­tial. Mon­day’s launch rep­re­sent­ed the cul­mi­na­tion of years of re­lent­less ded­i­ca­tion and hard work, all aimed at up­lift­ing so­ci­ety’s most vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren.

Bai­ley com­mend­ed CATT CEO Shel­don Cyrus for trans­form­ing the fa­cil­i­ty in­to a vi­brant, nur­tur­ing space — a sanc­tu­ary where chil­dren will find joy, growth, and the sup­port they de­serve. How­ev­er, she re­mind­ed the staff that, as won­der­ful as the NCEC is, it is still not “home.”

She said CATT strives to keep chil­dren with their fam­i­lies wher­ev­er it is safe and in the child’s best in­ter­est. How­ev­er, Bai­ley added, when chil­dren face im­mi­nent dan­ger, CATT must step in, striv­ing to work along­side fam­i­lies to build the ca­pac­i­ty for safe re­uni­fi­ca­tion.

Bai­ley said that CATT has cel­e­brat­ed nu­mer­ous suc­cess­ful rein­te­gra­tions and con­tin­ues to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for lov­ing fam­i­lies to raise these chil­dren. When fam­i­ly rein­te­gra­tion is not pos­si­ble, CATT seeks fos­ter care, kin­ship fos­ter care, or adop­tion. Bai­ley ap­plaud­ed her team’s re­cent adop­tion and fos­ter care aware­ness cam­paign, a cal­en­dar event since 2018, which has dri­ven ef­forts to in­crease the num­ber of kin­ship fos­ter care providers. Bai­ley said this op­tion al­lows chil­dren to re­main con­nect­ed with their ex­tend­ed fam­i­lies when par­ents can­not care for them. Bai­ley stressed that kin­ship fos­ter care is prefer­able, as it helps pre­serve fam­i­ly ties.

Mean­while, she ex­plained, that the fos­ter care team sup­ports these care­givers with on­go­ing mon­i­tor­ing, train­ing, fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, and psy­choso­cial sup­port. Cur­rent­ly, CATT over­sees over 150 chil­dren in fos­ter care, with 117 in tra­di­tion­al place­ments and 35 in kin­ship care. The au­thor­i­ty has al­so ap­proved over 100 fos­ter care providers — 81 tra­di­tion­al and 23 kin­ship fos­ter care­givers.