Edenvale Child Protection ( hotline)

Statutory Child Protection Services

Child Welfare SA – Edenvale holds the statutory child protection mandate over the Edenvale and Bedfordview area. This means it is the legally recognised body responsible for receiving reports of child abuse and neglect, investigating them, and taking action under the Children's Act. Services include:

Investigations: Social workers assess reports of abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, neglect) and determine what action is needed to protect the child. This includes home visits, school visits, collateral contacts, and assessments.

Emergency removal and safe care placement: When a child cannot safely remain at home, social workers can effect an emergency removal and place the child in temporary safe care — a registered safe care home or family placement — while court processes proceed.

Children's Court inquiries and finalisations: Social workers compile reports for, attend, and represent the child's interests in Children's Court proceedings. Children's Court can order foster care, continued safe care, return to parents with conditions, or placement in a children's home.

Foster care screening, placement, and supervision: Prospective foster parents are screened, assessed, and trained; placements are made and monitored; court-required supervision reports are compiled. Foster care extends the support of a family to children who cannot live with their birth parents.

Placement in children's homes: Where neither home nor foster care is appropriate, social workers facilitate placement in a registered children's home (Child and Youth Care Centre).

Counselling: Therapeutic services for children and families affected by abuse, neglect, trauma, divorce, bereavement, substance abuse, or domestic violence.

Family reconstruction: Support for families that have experienced crisis, working toward reunification or stabilisation where it is safe to do so.

Community Outreach: School-Based Social Work

A school-based outreach programme places social workers at five primary schools in Edenvale, available on request for counselling on child neglect, abandonment, substance abuse, and child abuse. The value of school-based social work is early identification — reaching children while issues are still manageable, before they escalate into the crisis that requires court intervention.

Pinocchio Educare Centre

Since 1988, Child Welfare SA – Edenvale has operated the Pinocchio Educare Centre — an early childhood development (ECD) programme for children of preschool age from low-income families. Open Monday–Friday, 07:00–17:00. Contact: 011 452 5940.

For GBV Survivors

Child Welfare SA – Edenvale is the primary referral for GBV survivors in the Edenvale/Bedfordview area whose children have been abused, are at risk, or have been removed or need placement. It is also the referral point for survivors who wish to become foster parents, or whose own children need counselling following exposure to domestic violence.

For GBV survivors themselves (rather than their children), specialist GBV support can be found at: FAMSA Johannesburg (+27 11 788 4784); POWA (People Opposed to Woman Abuse, 011 642 4345); GBV Command Centre (0800 428 428, toll-free, 24/7).

Child Welfare SA – Edenvale: edenvalechildwelfare.co.za. Phone: 011 452 5940 / 011 452 5941. Email: administrator@edenvalechildwelfare.co.za. PO Box 1314, Edenvale, 1610. Hours: Mon–Fri 07:30–15:00 (office), 07:00–17:00 (Educare). Statutory child protection mandate: Edenvale and Bedfordview. DSD-funded. Child Welfare SA affiliate. GBV crisis: 0800 428 428 / Childline: 116.