Community Awareness & Prevention Programme (CAPP) – Empowers approximately 80 000 children and adults per year, thereby preventing child abuse and ensuring early intervention in cases of child abuse and neglect.
Soon after Childline started growing, we realised that while thousands of children were calling Childline, many thousands more still didn’t know about us. As well as having children reach out to us, we needed to reach out to children and teach them about our toll-free number. We started CAPP – the Community Awareness & Prevention Programme – and we now reach more than 70 000 children, and 10 000 adults per year from our satellite offices in the Inner-city, Soweto, Tembisa, Katlehong and Sebokeng.
The CAPP teams from each office identify vulnerable schools in their areas, and over the course of a week, social workers & counsellors conduct class-by-class discussions about children’s rights and responsibilities, and who they should talk to if anyone hurts them. The content is in line with the Department of Education’s Life Skills Curriculum. Inevitably, some learners come forward to report various concerns or problems. Disclosures are handled by the team, who provide basic counselling, risk assessment, and then make necessary referrals.
Many learners talk to their educators about their problems, so it is essential that they are equipped with the skills to help these children once Childline has left the school. Through a voluntary workshop for educators, the CAPP team imparts both the knowledge and tools required for educators to identify, and appropriately respond to, possible abuse or neglect.
In addition to the School Talks Programme, the CAPP team also spend time in ECDs and creches, as well as clinics, drop-in centres, child and youth care centres, where they offer awareness and prevention presentations to both children and adults.
Without this service, children in these communities would remain uninformed and therefore vulnerable, and adults, including parents, caregivers, educators and child protection workers would be less able to identify and assist children who are being abused.
