Jelly Beanz (Cape Town)

The work: who Jelly Beanz serves

In South Africa: one in three children is sexually abused before the age of 18. Boys are as vulnerable as girls. 82% of children have been directly exposed to violence in their home or community. One in every ten high school learners in Gauteng views pornography every day. These numbers define the landscape in which Jelly Beanz works — and why its commitment is always to reach the most vulnerable, most disadvantaged, and most under-resourced communities.

Services are available to all children and their families who have experienced trauma, abuse, or neglect. Any person can make a referral — no formal social work pathway is required. Most referrals come through schools and social workers. All services are free.

Individual and group therapy

Jelly Beanz provides individual therapy for children and families experiencing trauma, sexual abuse, GBV exposure, neglect, and harmful sexual behaviours. Group therapy is also offered — including the "Beanz Bricks Club," a Lego®-based group therapeutic intervention that builds social interaction skills while processing trauma.

Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) is a formal part of the programme: therapy dog Danni Beanz and service dog Toffee bring comfort and emotional regulation to sessions, particularly for children who are fearful of adults or struggle to engage verbally.

Play therapy

Play therapy is central to Jelly Beanz's approach — using games, toys, clay, drawings, and paint to help children who cannot say what happened to them to show it instead. This is not recreational play: it is clinical work, allowing children to communicate at their own pace, without interrogation.

Harmful Sexual Behaviours (HSB)

Jelly Beanz explicitly specialises in interventions for children exhibiting Harmful Sexual Behaviours — recognising that such behaviours most commonly arise from the child's own exposure to abuse and neglect. These children are both perpetrators of harm and victims themselves, and require skilled, non-punitive, trauma-informed therapeutic support.

Court preparation

One of Jelly Beanz's most critical services is court preparation for child witnesses — preparing children to testify in criminal proceedings against their abusers. This is highly specialised work: a child who has been sexually abused, now required to narrate the event in a courtroom, is at severe risk of secondary victimisation without careful preparation. Jelly Beanz's expertise in this area directly contributes to justice outcomes.

School-based counselling

Jelly Beanz operates weekly school counselling services in Dunoon (5 schools), Table View (1 school), and Moorreesburg. Trained counsellors, volunteers, and students are placed in schools to identify problems early, involve parents and caregivers, and provide direct support to learners. This community-embedded model reaches children who would never access a counselling service otherwise.

Isipho seThemba — Boxes of Hope

One of Jelly Beanz's most innovative responses to the access problem is the Isipho seThemba project: "Boxes of Hope" — therapy in a box. Each box is a packaged set of therapeutic tools and materials for children and their caregivers, designed for use in deeply rural communities where no trained therapist will ever visit. By packaging therapeutic practice into accessible, culturally relevant materials, Jelly Beanz extends its reach to children who are entirely beyond the reach of conventional services.

Professional training and resource development

Jelly Beanz trains social workers, psychologists, prosecutors, SAPS FCS officers, teachers, and other child protection professionals in child trauma, child sexual abuse, harmful sexual behaviours, and trauma-informed care. An upcoming Trauma-Informed Care course (in-person + online modules) will extend this reach nationally.

The organisation has developed and published its own African-context therapeutic resources, including "Our Bodies: Helping Parents, Caregivers and Teachers talk with young children about sexuality" and "Our Amazing Bodies" — addressing a genuine gap in culturally appropriate child safety and sexuality education materials for South Africa.

Research and international partnerships

Jelly Beanz is South Africa's partner for ECPAT International/UNICEF/Interpol in the "Disrupting Harm" study — collecting evidence from 14 countries on online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA). Two Jelly Beanz staff were also appointed to the SITAN (South Africa Situational Analysis of Child Sexual Exploitation) advisory group.

Jelly Beanz: jellybeanz.org.za / +27 21 556 2456 / +27 63 709 2048 / info@jellybeanz.org.za / 253 Blaauwberg Road, Table View, Cape Town. Free. Child trauma therapy, play therapy, AAT, court prep, HSB interventions, school counselling, Boxes of Hope (rural), professional training. Referrals accepted from anyone. Childline 116 (24/7). GBV crisis: 0800 428 428 (24/7).