Foster Care

The Need for Foster Care:
Arise strongly believes that children should grow up in loving families.  Sadly, for too many children this is not possible. Cape Town is a city which continues to see an increasing number of babies and children left abandoned, in hospitals, under bridges, even in plastic bags or dumped in drains. For some children, physical or sexual abuse, parent’s addiction to drugs and alcohol, HIV/AIDS or parents in prison, forced them to be placed in children’s homes. There is simply a massive shortage of foster parent’s available, meaning that social workers have no other options than to place children in large institutions.  Arise is seeking to help by recruiting Christian foster parents.

What exactly is foster care?
The idea of fostering is to provide care for a child whose parents require time to sort out their problems.  In most cases, the initial period ordered by the children’s court is two years.  The aim for a fostered child is to return them to the care of his/her biological parent(s) once the problems that caused them to go into foster care have been resolved.  The sad reality is that in a vast number of cases, family reunification doesn’t and often cannot occur and the child remains in a state of perpetual foster care for years.  Therefore, foster parents have to be willing to make a long-term commitment to a child with the knowledge that in some cases the children may return to family members. This would only happen on the recommendation of the social worker, once the situation has been thoroughly investigated and it was deemed in the best interests of the child/ren concerned. If there is a need for Christian couples to consider adopting vulnerable children into their families, the need for Christian foster-carers is far greater.  Welfare organisations deal with literally thousands of cases of children who require temporary care.
Can foster care lead to adoption? Yes, it is certainly can.  Whilst adoption cannot usually occur without parental consent, there are many situations in which fostered children can become permanent members of the family.  This could be that the parents go missing and become untraceable; maybe the parent has shown no responsibility to the child over a period of time (usually at least a year); perhaps they have made no effort to change the situation that placed the child in foster care. 
In a different scenario the parent may die leaving the child available for adoption.  In some situations, the magistrate of the court can determine that the parent is withholding their consent unreasonably and allow an adoption to continue. It is best to speak to the social worker who placed your foster care child with you.  They will have a thorough report as to the reasons that the child was found in need of care.  Explain that you would like to adopt the child and want to know if it is possible and if so, how to proceed.  Arise is happy to chat to you. Remember that in all situations, it is the child’s best interests that are maintained.

Who can become a foster parent?
Whilst preference is given to married couples, the need for foster parents is so great that single people would be considered, so long as it is believed that they are capable and have good support networks in place.  You must be at least 21, and to able to prove that you could raise and educate a child.  Welfare organisations are not looking for millionaires, but it is important that their basic needs will be met.  Arise is unashamedly a Christian ministry, meaning that our recruiting drive is focused on the evangelical church.

I want to foster…what should I do now?
Deciding to foster is a massive undertaking and needs to be thoroughly thought through.  We recommend that anyone interest should first come to one of the information evenings put on by Arise at various locations around the city.  The dates for these events are posted on this website.  Depending on the situation and experience of the prospective foster parents, we often recommend hosting a child from a children’s home for a few weekends first, to see how everything works out. After this, you can either contact a statutory organisation directly, or you can work through Arise.  Whilst Arise does not carry out statutory work itself (i.e. the legal process of removing children from danger and placing them in alternative care), it networks with most of the major statutory bodies in Cape Town.  We have been authorised to screen, train and support foster parents for BADISA.
Should you wish to work through Arise, you need to:

• Complete a Foster Care Form – downloadable from this website and return it to the Arise Office, for the attention of This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (social worker)
• We will then arrange for a home visit and invite you to training.
• With your permission, we will contact the social workers at the children’s homes or BADISA and make them aware of your availability to foster.

They will try to match you to a child that best fits your preference or capabilities.
You will then make contact with you to walk through the final processes.         

Sipho’s Story:

Sipho lived the first two years ten months of his life in many different places around Cape Town, sometimes under bridges, sometimes against supermarket walls, sometimes in shelters. On two occasions he was removed temporarily by social workers. After police removed Sipho for the third time, a children’s court inquiry was opened and he was placed in a safe-house in Langa before moving to a larger children’s home in Athlone.  Having known Sipho for his whole life, my husband and I started seriously praying about whether we should foster him. We took the decision even more seriously after his biological mother pleaded with us to care for him and in her words to ‘bring him up in the ways of the Lord’.  We knew that we wanted to share the knowledge and love of the gospel of Jesus Christ with this little boy.  We weren’t sure if we could at first, we’d only been married a short time and we were both working full time.  On the other hand, we knew that many three year olds entering the care system in Cape Town stay there for years, often in large children’s homes.
We made a commitment to pray for another Christian family to come forward.  When this didn’t happen, we decided to trust Christ and begin the process of applying to make Sipho a member of our family.  We started by hosting him in our home every weekend – this gave us time to adjust to their being three of us and to bond with him (though that latter bit was easy)! One of BADISA’s social workers, came a completed a home visit and wrote up a comprehensive report stating that we were suitable foster parents.  On 15th July 2008, Sipho joined our family and is an absolute delight. What a joy to see him love his bible, how awesome when we see him jump into the swimming pool – a confident and happy four year old. What is more, the mother came forward recently to sign him over to us permanently, so we are halfway through the adoption process.  ‘God is good and His love endures forever’.

Arise is in the process of improving our services and forms. Please contact the Arise office 021 633 4058 for additional information which includes extra check lists as well as downloading this application form.

Download Foster Care form

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