Cape Mental Health Society

Services for Persons with Intellectual Disability

Special Education and Care Centres. Three community-based centres serve 180 children with severe and profound intellectual disabilities — drawing from poorly resourced communities in and around Heideveld, Khayelitsha, and Mitchells Plain. Each child has an individual education plan, implemented through play and a sensory curriculum, with emphasis on life skills (eating, toileting, washing, dressing, social interaction), nutrition, school transport, and access to medical and therapeutic support. Primary caregivers are supported with guidance, capacity building, and social work follow-up at home.

Training Workshops Unlimited (TWU). Approximately 600 persons with intellectual disability receive life and work skills training across CMH's four workshops in Athlone, Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, and Retreat. The career path model is unique in South Africa, progressing trainees through seven stages from care and stimulation (Eagles programme) through life skills, work skills, skills development and learnerships, simulated open-labour-market employment, and into supported employment in the actual labour market — with ongoing job coaching and employer support. This is not sheltered work: it is a genuine pathway to employment and economic participation.

Garden Cottage and Eagles Programme. Garden Cottage provides supervised community accommodation for 8 women with intellectual disability. The Eagles programme provides a safe, structured day care environment with quality care and stimulation for adults with severe and profound intellectual disability, combined with respite for family caregivers — operating in Athlone and Mitchells Plain.

Services for Persons with Psychosocial Disability

Fountain House (SA). A community-based rehabilitation centre operating on the internationally proven Clubhouse model, Fountain House provides a work-ordered day programme for people living with psychosocial disabilities (depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and other conditions). Service users attend centres in Observatory and Mitchells Plain, participating in work units (administration, catering, craft, employment/communications), developing insight into their conditions through psycho-education, and accessing employment opportunities in the open labour market.

Kimber House. Supported accommodation for 11 adults with psychosocial disability — providing a safe, affordable, structured home environment that builds towards greater independence through participation in practical life and household management skills, leisure and social activities at Fountain House, and case management support.

Mental Health Services — Including the SAVE Programme

Social Work Services. CMH offers holistic, family-focused social work services to people with intellectual and psychosocial disability and their families across greater Cape Town and in peri-urban and rural areas. Services span counselling; life skills groups; disability grant administration; parent/carer support groups; community wellness events; rural outreach; schools programmes; and statutory services under the Mental Health Care Act.

YouthMatters. A comprehensive school mental health promotion programme adapted from an Australian model and contextualised for South African realities (poverty, child abuse and neglect, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy). Implemented at Ocean View and Zeekoevlei Secondary Schools, it provides structure and support for learners and educators to build mental health resilience and coping capacity.

Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). Customised counselling services to corporate clients, addressing employee challenges that affect workplace performance and well-being.

The SAVE Programme — Sexual Abuse Victim Empowerment

The SAVE programme is the most directly relevant component of CMH's work for a GBV survivor-facing website — and it addresses one of the most systematically neglected intersections in South Africa's entire social care landscape: the sexual abuse of people with mental disabilities.

The statistics are stark. People with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities are at significantly elevated risk of sexual abuse compared to the general population, yet they are among the least likely to be believed when they report it, the least equipped to navigate the criminal justice system, and the most likely to be failed by courts that do not understand their communication or their experience.

SAVE was built to correct this. It provides:

• Psycho-legal assessments by clinical psychologists, establishing the complainant's cognitive capacity, credibility, communication needs, and support requirements in the court context
• Expert court testimony by the assessing psychologist, preparing the court to understand and appropriately support the complainant
• In-depth psychosocial assessments by social workers, identifying needs and planning appropriate social work intervention
• Comprehensive social work services to the complainant and their family, including individual counselling, family support, and ongoing follow-up
• Court support before, during, and after proceedings — ensuring that survivors are not abandoned at any stage of the justice process
• Liaison with investigating officers, court staff, and psychologists — coordinating the multi-system response required for cases involving complainants with mental disabilities
• Practical support — transport and meals when complainants attend for assessments, recognising the practical and financial barriers that otherwise prevent participation
• Clients in conflict with the law — support for persons with mental disabilities who are accused of offences, including advocacy for appropriate treatment rather than imprisonment, and legal representation assistance

For practitioners and social workers: SAVE is the appropriate referral pathway for any case involving sexual abuse of a person with an intellectual or psychosocial disability in the Western Cape. CMH is one of very few — possibly the only — organisations in the Cape with this specific psycho-legal capability.

Innovation and Training

CMH's Learning for Life training department offers customised courses, workshops, and study materials for community workers, care workers, social workers, teachers, and NGO staff supporting people with mental and physical disabilities. Its Easy-to-Read (ETR) programme — following international Inclusion Europe standards — makes written information genuinely accessible to people with intellectual disabilities, supporting their right to make informed decisions about their own lives.

Relevance to GBV Survivors

Cape Mental Health is not a general-purpose GBV crisis service. For survivors without a disability, SADAG (0800 20 50 26), the GBV Command Centre (0800 428 428), or Rape Crisis (021 447 9762) are the appropriate first points of contact. But for any survivor with an intellectual or psychosocial disability in the Western Cape — or for any professional working with such a person — CMH's SAVE programme is an essential, often irreplaceable resource.

Cape Mental Health: 18 & 22 Ivy Street, Observatory, Cape Town. Phone: +27 21 447 9040. Email: info@cmh.org.za. Website: capementalhealth.co.za. NPO 003 264 / PBO 130 004 456. SAVE programme (sexual abuse of persons with mental disabilities): contact main office. Over 110 years of service.