Established in 1908, Cape Town Child Welfare Society is one of South Africa’s oldest and largest child welfare organisations, having helped over a million children emerge from crisis situations in its century-plus of service. A registered non-profit and designated Child Protection Agency with the Department of Social Development, the Society is one of Cape Town’s most trusted names in child protection and family welfare.
The organisation has a proud history of rendering adoption services, with its first adoption processed in 1926. For prospective parents, its social workers recruit, screen, and train adoptive parents to provide permanent homes for abandoned or orphaned children — a meaningful pathway to parenthood guided by experienced professionals.
Beyond adoption, services include foster care placements, intake and referral, investigations and intervention, and family preservation services, delivered through five intake offices across the Cape Peninsula. The Society also offers temporary safe care and foster care options for families wishing to open their homes to a child in need.
The late Archbishop Desmond Tutu served as the organisation’s patron, and it is affiliated with the International Forum for Child Welfare — a reflection of its standing both locally and internationally.