Parenting tops agenda at UNICEF South Africa CEO Network gathering in Cape Town
Tackling some of the key root causes of issues related to violence and mental wellbeing.
“Safety is not only the absence of violence but the presence of love,” says Benjamin Perks, UNICEF’s global parenting advocacy lead. He’s speaking at UNICEF South Africa’s first CEO Network Meeting for 2024, addressing a room full of leading business minds from across the Cape Town area.
The dialogue focused on the importance of universal parenting support in ensuring more positive childhood experiences that have impact over a lifetime, particularly in helping to reduce violence against children and improving mental wellbeing among families.
Adverse childhood experiences, such as substance abuse, psychological abuse and physical neglect, among others, were highlighted as being the core risk indicator for negative health and wellbeing outcomes throughout life.
The gathering was the first for several years in South Africa’s ‘Mother City’ and sparked an engaging discussion about how the business sector can strengthen its own role in providing better parenting support, both within companies but also through their unique reach to millions of customers. As Benjamin Perks pointed out, “There is no such thing as a trauma neutral workplace,” stressing the importance of companies’ role in acting on and taking parenting programming seriously.
South Africa suffers from high rates of violence against children, with on average, three children murdered every day and a further 27 suffering the physical and mental impact of surviving attempted murder or grievous bodily harm. The findings from a UNICEF South Africa U-Report poll in October 2023 also showed that at least 60 per cent of young people felt they needed some form of mental health support over the past year.
The meeting ended with a consensus and agreement that children do not live in a vacuum, meaning that to improve children’s lives a wide range of individuals and organizations need to be engaged to ensure holistic programming and support that is designed to advocate for and improve child wellbeing. There was also recognition that parenting support is needed across the spectrum, straddling economic and cultural differences.
UNICEF South Africa is advocating for the scale-up of universal access to parenting programming across the country to help tackle some of the key root causes of issues related to violence and mental wellbeing. This advocacy includes calling on all relevant partners to promote and maximize the use of existing parenting resources and programing to reach every parent in need.
