Introduction
Founded in 1936, Cotlands was originally created as a care centre for unwed mothers and their infants, and over the years has evolved into a shelter for abused, abandoned, HIV positive, orphaned and terminally ill children from birth to fourteen years of age.
With headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa, our activities have reflected the changing needs of our society and we have increased both the quality and quantity of services we provide. In the early 1990’s, Cotlands identified an urgent need to care for children directly impacted by HIV/AIDS. This focus included the establishment of a paediatric AIDS hospice, the first of its kind in South Africa at that time (1996), offering specialised paediatric palliative care 24 hours a day.
At present, Cotlands is servicing eight communities (Johannesburg South, Soweto, Alexandra, and Thembisa in Gauteng, Hlabisa in KwaZulu/Natal, East London in Eastern Cape, Helderberg in the Western Cape and Lydenburg in Mpumalanga) ¾ impacting more than 2 000 families either directly (through home based care and residential care) or indirectly (via outreach, training, capacity building and counselling).
Care now extends through the whole continuum – from identifying vulnerable children in the community to end stage hospice care for children dying of AIDS. Expanded services include home based care, community development and capacity-building services in the field of HIV/AIDS on a national basis. Cotlands presently offers the following services:
1. Cotlands Residential Care Programmes
1.1 Sanctuary (Gauteng)
1.2 Place of Safety (Western Cape)
1.3 Hospices (Gauteng and Western Cape)
1.4 Residential Orphan Care (Gauteng)
1.5 Educare (Gauteng)
2. Cotlands Outreach Programmes
2.1 Home Based Care (Gauteng and Kwa Zulu/Natal)
2.2 Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital Counselling Project (Gauteng)
2.3 Nutrition Project (Eastern Cape)
2.4 Orphan Care (KZN)
2.5 Educare (Mpumalanga)
2.6 HIV/AIDS Outreach Clinic (Gauteng)
2.7 Food Gardens (Gauteng, KZN and Western Cape)
3. Cotlands Training and Capacity Building Programme
3.1 HIV/AIDS Training (National)
3.2 Capacity Building (Gauteng and Eastern Cape)
3.3 Maths, Science, Literacy and Life Skills Training (National)
ORGANISATIONAL OBJECTIVE …
To provide exceptional models of care to children by empowering their families and communities with skills, knowledge, values and attitudes that will improve their quality of life.
SECONDARY OBJECTIVES …
- To address the needs of vulnerable children through a variety of specialised interventions, ranging from outreach programmes to end stage palliative care.
- To form partnerships with other NGO’s, local government and the private sector to fill the service delivery gaps in various communities by providing a range of services that will ensure the care and development of young children, provide food security, reverse the spread of HIV and AIDS, create jobs and promote self sustainability in poorer communities.
- To take into consideration Government’s priorities for the region when evaluating existing services and establishing new services.
- To identify current services available to vulnerable children in the areas Cotlands operates or plans to operate, to avoid unnecessary duplication, and to establish how best Cotlands knowledge, skills and resources can be utilised to address these needs.
1. COTLANDS RESIDENTIAL CARE PROGRAMMES
1.1 Sanctuary (Gauteng) and Place of Safety (Western Cape)
Goal:
To offer quality residential care to children between the ages of birth and nine, who have been abandoned, abused, orphaned and/or who are HIV positive.
Objectives:
- To provide residential care for up to 60 children (42 children in Johannesburg and 18 children in Macassar) at any one time, from birth to nine years.
- To offer holistic care, which incorporates physical, emotional, spiritual, cognitive and social development.
- To return abandoned and orphaned children to the community within one year, either through adoption or foster care, or reunification with extended family members.
- Reunification or alternative community placements for children who are clinically well.
1.2 Hospices (Gauteng and Western Cape)
Goals:
To offer quality residential care to children with HIV/AIDS, which includes:
- Palliative care to terminally ill children.
- Respite care for children who are acutely ill.
- Residential care for chronically ill abandoned babies and children.
- Aggressive medical treatment for children with opportunistic infections who are not yet “end stage”.
- Antiretroviral treatment where clinically indicated.
- Educating families.
Objectives:
- To offer holistic care for 50 residential children (20 in Gauteng and 30 in Western Cape) from birth to nine years who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and who cannot be cared for in the community.
- To offer palliative care to terminally ill children.
- To offer counselling and support services for caregivers and extended families.
- To return clinically well children back to the community through reunification or alternative community placements.
- To arrange funerals for orphans and children whose families do not have financial resources to bury them.
1.3 Residential Orphan Care (Gauteng)
Goals:
- To offer short-term residential care for newly orphaned children until permanent placement (foster care, adoption, placement with extended families or placement in a children’s home) can be arranged.
- To accommodate the older Cotlands children who are clinically well and receiving (ART) and who have embarked on formal schooling.
Objectives:
- To operate a place of safety house where up to twelve recently orphaned and vulnerable children can be accommodated temporarily until permanent placement (foster care, adoption, placement with extended families or placement in a children’s home) can be arranged.
- To offer a family-style environment to the older Cotlands children who attend formal schooling
- To ensure ART compliance for HIV positive children
- To offer bereavement counselling to the children.
- To screen and orientate children for their new community placements.
- To address developmental and educational delays.
- To prepare the children to cope emotionally, socially and scholastically in their new environment.
1.4 Educare (Gauteng)
Goal:
To educate and equip the children of Cotlands with the necessary skills and knowledge to put them on an equal footing with their peers in the greater community.
Objectives:
- To provide essential life experiences by creating learning opportunities and other experiences which foster continued growth and development.
- To identify developmental delays and work out an appropriate curriculum to achieve successful remediation
- To create opportunities that strengthen self-esteem and independence by ensuring recognition of each child as a unique individual, encouraging inclusion of the special needs child and fostering responsibility for self and others.
- To ensure HIV positive and other special needs children are given equal opportunities and encouraged to develop at a comfortable pace.
- To prepare the children for formal education through the effective implementation of the OBE system.
- To provide holistic care, which includes the child’s spiritual, physical, intellectual, social and emotional development needs.
2. COTLANDS OUTREACH PROGRAMMES
2.1 Home Based Care (Gauteng and KwaZulu / Natal)
Goal:
To provide palliative care to chronically and terminally ill children in their homes and empower their primary caregivers to care for them in the absence of a trained home caregiver.
Objectives:
- Helping families to care for their HIV positive children at home.
- Home care for minor medical problems and referral to the clinic or hospital if necessary.
- Assistance with hygiene needs, such as bathing and household chores.
- Assisting families to link up with resources such as social grants.
- Counselling families.
- Provision of material relief, such as milk formula for babies.
- Helping families to prepare for the imminent death of a family member with AIDS, including identifying caregivers who will take responsibility for caring for children after the death of their parents.
- Identifying orphans, establishing what assistance each child requires and taking practical steps to meet these needs.
2.2 Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital Counselling Project (Gauteng)
Goal
To provide psychosocial care to the HIV positive babies and children receiving treatment at the Paediatric HIV clinic and wards at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital ¾ and to their primary caregivers.
Objectives
- To ensure that holistic outpatient care is provided to HIV positive babies and children referred to the Paediatric HIV clinic and wards at CHBH.
- To empower the primary caregivers of HIV infected children by training them to care for their children at home.
- To create a ‘safety net’ for children living with HIV/AIDS and children affected by the epidemic through early identification of vulnerable children and implementing the intervention programmes.
- To support the primary caregivers of the children in the use of ART.
2.3 Nutrition Project (Eastern Cape)
Goal:
To address the malnutrition problem in children from birth to five years, while empowering their caregivers with income generation skills.
Objectives:
- To provide a nutrition project targeted at children between birth and five years of age residing in East London in the Eastern Cape (the Mzamomhle, Duncan Village, Mdantsane and Reeston communities).
- To educate the community about proper nutrition.
- To refer the parents of the children being assisted through the nutrition programme to training programmes delivering income generating skills.
- To improve the quality of care offered to the children by providing additional support services to their families
- To initiate food gardens to supplement the material aid provided through the nutrition project.
2.4 Orphan Care (KZN)
Goal:
To mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS in Hlabisa by implementing an effective orphan care programme that is appropriate in a rural environment.
Objectives:
- To identify orphans, establishing what assistance each child requires and taking practical steps to meet these needs.
- To manage childcare teams who monitor the orphans and vulnerable children.
- Development of an effective Orphan Care Model.
2.5 Educare (Mpumalanga)
Goal:
To offer an educare service for children from three to seven years that provides an inclusive programme to vulnerable young children, taking into account their unique requirements, developmental delays and psychosocial needs.
Objectives:
- To provide a daily educational and care service to children who are too young to attend formal schooling.
- To provide a safe and healthy environment where children’s daily needs can be met under competent adult supervision.
- To provide the children with a wide variety of opportunities to experience and discover the world around them.
- To provide a curriculum that is sensitive to the children’s special needs and addresses their educational, social, emotional, physical and cultural needs as well as essential life skills.
- To equip the children with the skills required for formal schooling.
- To create an environment where children are stimulated and encouraged to learn.
- To ensure that older siblings are relieved of their responsibility to care for younger family members so that they can attend to their own educational and social needs.
- To maximise the use of the facility by transferring skills to the community in the form of HIV/AIDS awareness workshops, child care information and parenting skills.
2.6 HIV/AIDS Outreach Clinic (Gauteng)
Goal:
To improve the medical care offered to chronically and terminally ill children who are patients of Cotlands Home Based Care programme in Gauteng, through the establishment of a paediatric HIV/AIDS clinic.
Objectives:
- To diagnose and treat opportunistic infections and other medical conditions.
- To establish the child’s HIV status and evaluate suitability for ART.
- To refer patients directly to the appropriate state medical facility.
- To offer training and support to primary care givers during their visits to the clinic.
- Food Gardens (Gauteng, KZN and Western Cape)
Goal:
To increase food security amongst the population served by Cotlands.
Objectives:
- To establish community food gardens at all Cotlands outreach projects.
- To equip Cotlands clients with the skills and resources to establish and maintain food gardens
- To assist Cotlands beneficiaries to have an adequate food supply that will ensure a healthy diet.
- To contribute towards the alleviation of hunger associated with poverty and unemployment.
3. COTLANDS TRAINING AND CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAMMES (NATIONAL)
Goal:
To offer a quality training and consultancy service to community based projects, NGO’s, educational institutions and faith-based groups who are involved in building the capacity of their respective communities and organisations.
Objectives:
- To assist non profit organisations, community based organisations, and ECD centres to gain the skills required to offer effective services.
- To develop the support systems within these organisations in terms of HR, administration, fundraising, monitoring and evaluation that will assist them in meeting their goals.
- To increase the quality of service offered to vulnerable children.
3.3 Maths, Science, Literacy and Life Skills Training (National)
Goal:
To expand Cotlands outreach projects, through building capacity and family relationships in impoverished, poorly educated, HIV impacted and malfunctioning families, by providing an educational component that will equip the beneficiaries with maths, science, literacy and life skills.
Objectives:
- To provide essential learning experiences through play opportunities and everyday life activities, which will foster growth and development.
- To prepare children for formal education through the effective implementation of a maths, science, literacy and life skills programme.
- To reduce or eliminate the developmental delays associated with HIV in children
- To provide holistic care, that includes the child’s spiritual, physical, intellectual, social and emotional development needs.
- To build family capacity and encourage positive familial relationships.
- To assist caregivers to acquire maths, science and literacy skills indirectly
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