We have five key aspects to our Model of Care that we provide children. We believe that the Foundation and Four Pillars of this model give our children the best chance of eventually leaving our care and becoming happy and positively contributing people in society. 

This programme is the foundation of all of our work with children at Amagama`mathathu Initiative and is where we create a second chance for our children to experience family-style life. We do this by providing a comfortable and safe home in the communities from which the children originate and employ staff that speak the children’s language and understand their culture. Foster Mothers are carefully screened at employment and receive ongoing training and supervision from our Social Work Team to ensure they provide a loving caring home that upholds strong family values. Additional support services are accessed for the numerous special needs that foster children often require. We believe that this loving family home environment where belonging and important life values are actively taught, is essential to the care of our children. It is this loving and caring environment, where positive relationships with ‘siblings’ and foster parents are created, that enables our other programmes (Four Pillars) to be effective in remedying some of the further disadvantages our children come to us with.

Pillar 1: Education Programme

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela

Amagama`mathathu Initiative believes strongly in this statement and is committed to striving for improved educational levels for all our children. Our extensive Education Programme involves three key areas of focus.

• The Lizo Nobanda ECD Centre in Khayelitsha provides high quality pre-school education to 40 children and ensures that they are ready for ‘big school’.
• Our Basic Education Programme ensures each child is in a school or appropriate education facility, provided with uniforms and stationery and scholar transport.
• Our Educational Support Programme provides the additional educational support that most of our children require. Our full time education specialist coordinates this programme which includes Tutoring, English Reading and extramural/activities programme to the children across all of our homes.

Pillar 2: Therapeutic Intervention Programme

The majority of our children have experienced some form of abuse and/or neglect and therefore often carry scars that need therapeutic intervention. Whilst we believe the ‘Loving Family-Home Programme’, can achieve great outcomes in remedying some of these scars, there is also the need to provide some children with specialized therapeutic services. The Social Work team coordinate therapeutic plans for each child, providing some of the therapeutic interventions, either through group work or individual sessions with the children themselves, but also bringing in outside service providers such as psychologists, counsellors and occupational therapists to provide these additional services.

Pillar 3: Evelyn Connolly Transitional Support Programme

There are many transitions that need to be navigated throughout our lives, but for children there are many more that happen in a relatively short time. Foster children that come into our care inevitably have to leave our care between ages 18 to 21. This means that it is crucially important that while they are in our care, we ensure that they are adequately prepared transitioning out of our care. Amagama`mathathu Initiative’s Ibhabhathane (Butterfly) Programme, partners with specialists in the field (Mamelani Projects), to design workshops, outings and activities for each of our four age groups of children

More recently we have intensified our focus on the ‘Aging Out’ group who need adequate preparation for the big transition of living independently. This involves training for our foster mothers, assistants and social work team in best care practices for this age group of youth; our Transitional Home Programme, where we have partnered with another specialist (Echo) to establish a home for those who do not have a family placement to go to after their foster care expires; additional support initiatives such as work readiness, mentorship, material and social support. The transitions that this age group face with leaving school, looking for work, living more independently and leaving care, makes this one of the most vulnerable times in their lives and crucial that we further develop this programme.

Pillar 4: Reunification Programme

Although living in one of our homes can form a significant part of their lives up to the age of 21 years, the first prize outcome in our work is to reunite them with biological family or an adoptive parent. Achieving this outcome is often not possible, but does not diminish the importance of a reunification programme. This programme involves firstly trying to locate biological family or potential adoptive parents, then assessing suitability, having initial visiting and trial placements, before finally making the actual placement and offering ongoing support for the initial 6-12 months.