Chapter 13 - Children in need of special protection - Children's ...

555At present, despite active recruitment drives, traditional foster care provides a finite capacity forthe placement of orphaned children. To address this issue two variations of foster care haverecently been proposed: 51Cluster Foster Care involves a cluster of houses within a community which are identified ashomes for orphaned children. Single women or couples are recruited to care for the childrenfollowing suitable training. Up to six children are placed in each house. The volunteers areeither employed by a local NGO or act independently as foster parents and apply for statefunding in the form of a foster care grant. Community workers link these volunteers to whateverresources are required and available within the community. Finally community supportstructures such as creches and day-care centres are required to free parents to undertakeadditional income-generating activities.Collective Foster Care: This is a variation of traditional foster care where, instead of aplacement with an individual woman or couple, children are placed into the collective care of asocial, religious or work-related body whose members undertake to collectively act as surrogatecarers for the children. Individual members of the group may elect to accept responsibility forspecific needs of the children.51Laudon M Report on the Pietermaritzburg Summit on Children in Distress July 1996Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, 1996.