Community Interaction
Our involvement with the surrounding communities has evolved over the past 13 years, and has been shaped by the community psychology principles of sustainability, a participative ethos, empowerment and ethical accountability.
Examples of community based interventions undertaken by WCPC in the last two years include:
- A support group for families who have a family member with a severe mental illness.
- Interventions in primary schools in Cloetesville and James Town to work with grade 1 learners identified by the school as being at risk of academic failure. This project aimed to help the grade 1 learners develop the fine motor, cognitive and social skills needed to proceed to grade 2.
- Interventions in high schools to deal with problems such as bullying and teenage pregnancy.
- Workshops for teachers to help them understand and respond to learners with behavioural and learning disorders.
- Psycho-educational workshops with adolescents to facilitate skills in interpersonal relationships, decision making, emotional regulation, study skills and resisting peer pressure.
- Career planning workshops for grade 12 learners.
- Public awareness programmes on issues such as youth suicide, depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
- Support groups for parents who have lost a child to gang violence.
- Preventive interventions to youths at risk of gang involvement.
- A psycho-educational group for parents at a crèche.
- A drama therapy group for troubled high school learners.
The students and staff at Welgevallen plan and implement these community-based psychological interventions in
Welgevallen House in Stellenbosch
as well as in various clinics and schools in Cloetesville, Kayamandi, James Town, Klapmuts and Kylemore.
All services are designed to be culturally sensitive and compassionate towards all clients, and to reflect high standards of professional ethics and competence. These interventions are undertaken in partnership with NGOs, schools, primary health care clinics and community leaders (e.g. church leaders, ward councillors and elected representatives of local government).
Welgevallen plans long term interventions to support community development and as such is responsive to long term chronic problems as expressed by communities rather than short term acute crises. We seek to serve the best interests of the broad communities of our immediate vicinity as expressed by community leaders in the spirit of the basic tenets of community psychology, namely, democracy, community development, liberation, sustainability, participation, and the promotion of health and wellbeing, empowerment and social justice.
Dagbreek: Dagbreker - Lou-Marié Kruger, Kylemore projek
Our community based interventions are constantly evolving in response to the needs expressed by the community. Rather than providing temporary and superficial interventions, Welgevallen aims to maintain a sustainable and enduring relationship with the community, without fostering dependency.
