CHILDREN’S ACT REGULATIONS: AMENDMENTS GAZETTED

Please note: Within hours of being gazetted, the amendments were republished under a different notice number.

Amendments have been made to sections of general regulations published in 2010 under the Children’s Act, 2005.

This is noting that most sections of the Children’s Amendment Act, 2022, came into force on 8 Novembr 2023, as SA Legal Academy reported at the time.

Gazetted on 10 November 2023 and immediately effective, among other things the amendments:

• require the Director-General of the Department of Social Development to prepare and ensure the implementation of a quality assurance framework for all child protection services, childcare services, related organisations and adoption social workers
• prescribe the manner in which a child needing care and protection should be placed, as well as the procedures to be followed
• require child services to be monitored and supervised ‘as contemplated in the Act’, and
• prescribe the procedures to be followed when arranging for a child in alternative care to leave South Africa.

According to the transitional arrangements, any foster care order not extended in terms of section 159 of the Act and therefore lapsing after 11 November 2023 but before 30 June 2024 will be deemed valid until 30 June 2024.

• amendments to the 2010 regulations
• 2010 regulations
• SA Legal Academy report on the implementation of the Children’s Amendment Act, 2022

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch