We have recently started rating AIDS children’s care facilities (the term “orphanage” is anathema).  We received a report about an organisation that was neglecting the children in their care.

Moral hazard abounds.  The Department of Social Services will pay a foster parent a grant for every child in their care until their 15th birthday.  The amount, at R 640 per month per child, is significantly more than many people earn.  This particular organisation has 28 children in their care.  They have sixteen staff, of whom eight are in management positions.

Unannounced, we turned up.

The place was polished and spic-and-span.  However, we dug deeper.  It seems that conditions have only been good for the past week, ever since the Department of Social Services read them the riot act.  A nurse is only now on call and the children are getting attention.  Left alone, even for a moment, many of the children adopt the typical isolated rocking motions of those suffering from serious emotional neglect.

It is difficult to maintain the necessary detachment that an analyst must have.  The children are lonely and very excited to see anyone who pays them attention.  They queue up to be lifted and held, then run to the back of the queue for a second go.  They make no sound.

One little girl gently walked up to me and held up her tiny hands, placing them in mine.  Her face opened up in a magnificent beam of delight and then, ever so delicately, she walked around me, holding my hands.  As she come round in front of me again, she pirouetted; turning first to the right, then to the left.  Smiling and glad.  Then, delighted, she left.  Without saying a word.

While the immediate danger for these children appears to have been reduced there is still tremendous concern.  Staff moral is low.  They feel that they are not being paid adequately and are helping themselves to resources required by the children.  Management is remote and opaque.

We are placing this particular organisation on “watch” and will be back in a few months to see if they have maintained the level of care currently available.  It is still inadequate – children are not stimulated in any way, simply left in tiny rooms to their own devices – but they are being fed and cleaned.

What is more worrying is this:  if no-one had seen fit to go and take a look in the first place, nothing would have changed.  In this, unasked, Whythawk serves a vital roll.  We are watching.