Lawrence House – Cape Town

Lawrence House is a project of the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town. The Scalabrini Centre is a nonprofit organization founded by the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo in response to the many challenges faced by the migrant and refugee population in South Africa. The organization’s mission is to welcome, protect, promote and integrate migrants and refugees into local communities.

The Scalabrini Centre was established in 2002 and, in its 20 years of operation, has become a central interlocutor on forced migration issues in South Africa. Lawrence House was established in 2005 and has since established itself as an essential service as the only facility, locally and nationally, dedicated to the protection and care of refugee and unaccompanied migrant children. Through its expertise, it contributes to influencing practices for the advancement of the rights of these children, who are often excluded from legislation regarding their legal status.

The number of refugee and unaccompanied child migrants has increased over the past decade, despite the fact that migration routes have become increasingly risky for those who travel them. Families face hardship, trauma, and violence both during the journey and upon arrival in the host country. Although South Africa has a strong legal framework, underpinned by a strongly rights-oriented constitution, the implementation of asylum-seeker and refugee legislation does not meet international standards of protection, leaving many people seeking refuge unprotected and exposed to exploitation. The generally hostile environment in South Africa and an increasingly explicitly anti-migrant public opinion make the integration process even more difficult.

Constant exclusion and difficulties in accessing services weigh heavily on families; unfortunately, this often leads to family breakdown, child neglect and even abuse. The state of mental health, particularly of single mothers, is of great concern. These are some of the reasons why children and youth are separated from their parents once they arrive in South Africa. In other cases, so many children find themselves separated from family members while fleeing their home country or along the way, and find themselves accompanied by those who have no duty of care to them.

Lawrence House began as a response to the urgent need for housing for abandoned migrant and refugee children who were living at an informal facility lacking shelter services and not approved by Child Protective Services. It was later registered with Social Services and currently houses up to 30 children and youth.

Since 2005, children and youth from a variety of African countries such as Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Somalia, Namibia, Burundi, and South Africa have found in Lawrence House not only a place to call home, but more importantly, a familiar and supportive, culturally and linguistically sensitive context.

Given its specialized service, Lawrence House has developed its own methodology of care based on the trauma-informed approach. Through this method, the facility strives to respond in an integrated way to the different needs of each child: psychological and emotional accompaniment, daily care, support for school learning, recreational activities and, when possible, support for family reunification pathways.

Inspired by St. John Baptist Scalabrini, the principles of welcoming, active listening and acceptance guide our daily work. These values fully integrate with our trauma informed approach. Foreign children often carry deep emotional wounds, as well as experiences of relational and spatial loss. Our approach allows the team to interpret behaviors through a trauma-informed lens, separating behavior from the individual and focusing instead on each child’s strengths. We recognize that behavior is a response to distress or perceived threat, and our role is to support children in these moments, helping them rebuild self-esteem and emotional regulation skills.

Creating a structured environment provides stability and security. Clear rules and consistent responses from educators are key elements. Children who have experienced traumatic experiences often operate in a state of survival, adopting negative mechanisms that can manifest as difficult behaviors. Only through patience, repetition, consistency and congruence can these patterns begin to change. Some children require additional professional support depending on their developmental stage, the severity of the trauma or the life transitions they are facing. In such cases, we use our network of psychologists and therapists to offer individual therapeutic interventions in parallel to the daily work being done at Lawrence House.

Our goal is to create a safe and therapeutic environment in which migrants and young foreign refugees can grow into resilient and self-reliant individuals, capable of making choices that lead them to achieve their goals. Lawrence House’s core activities consist of daily programs that accompany and support each child holistically throughout their stay.