Four volunteers at the Wynberg Police Trauma Room recently received their certificates in recognition of their 18-month Victim Empowerment Programme (VEP) training at Wynberg Police Station.
On Wednesday 10 May, Lt Col Kevin Kleinsmith and Capt Zuko Mabheka, who heads up the Social Crime Prevention division at Wynberg Police Station, handed over the certificates to Patricia van Rooyen, Pumeza Stemela, Cynthia Bekwayo and Louise Clark. They, together with VEP coordinator Brian Lang and his wife Leah, now make up the team of counsellors manning the station’s trauma room.
In 2021, the station, in collaboration with the Wynberg Community Policing Forum (CPF), sent out an appeal to members of the Wynberg community to join the station’s VEP (“Programme in need of trauma counsellors”, People’s Post, 11 May 2021).
Brian, who has a degree in social sciences majoring in psychology and political sciences, “and a ton of experience” – 23 years’ worth – presented the training to the volunteers.
He explains the training comprised two aspects – a theoretical side and a practical side.
“The theory comprised defining trauma, basic counselling skills, counselling procedures, empowerment counselling and debriefing.”
Lang says the application process was done in close cooperation and with the support of both the police station and the CPF.
“Because the VEP is a component of the police, we work according to police protocol. This is in response to a national instruction whereby all police stations have to have a trauma room.”
Lang says the volunteers are trained to cope with situations like domestic violence and disputes, assaults, common assaults, rape, indecent assaults, business and residential robberies, hijacking, suicide, death and bereavement, as well as motor vehicle accidents.
“And it doesn’t stop here, with them having received their certificates. There is ongoing training because the dynamics within the social systems change all the time,” says Brian.
Leah, who has been with Brian every step of the way, says from the first day of welcoming the new volunteers they “became one”.
“This is the best team. We have become a family. And for me this is tremendous, and from the police side also, we have never for all these 23 years, experienced this kind of support,” she says.
Mabheka acknowledged his Social Crimes Prevention team – Const Lwandiso Njwabule and Sgt Bahle Gaga – for their role in making this partnership such a success. Njwabule is the domestic violence coordinator and the gender-based violence coordinator at Wynberg. Gaga, who is a designated firearms officer, assists with social crimes.
Mabheka explains that their division’s approach to fighting crime is a little different.
“We go deeper, in terms of we try to find the social issues that have led people to commit the crime. Hence there is this partnership with the police, the different stakeholders, and the women that you see here. There are other partnerships as well: the Department of Social Development, Thuthuzela Care Centres, the CPF, pastors, different churches and Mosaic. Our main focus is to find the root cause of crime.”
Congratulating the volunteers on the completion of their training, Mabheka says they were going to help a lot of people.
“Just the other weekend we, with Mr Lang’s help, managed to save two young toddlers from the street, and today they are being kept in a place of safety. So we have started working already, and I am going to harass you guys to work hard and make sure that this area is safe. Most importantly the kids, because vulnerable people are the most affected ones. We need to remove all the kids from the streets.”
Stemela, who has already attended three cases, says that she found the training and workshops empowering.
“I could use the skills from the training. We are giving strength to those people and hope that they must know they are not on their own. We also give some kind of education as well.”
She says they learned how to approach the different incidents.
“So you find yourself in the situation where you are dealing with others’ trauma, but you must try to avoid that space where you go too deep so that you don’t cry in front of that patient, because the patient is in that position where he or she expresses themselves. You can still be you, but you need to be professional.”
Clark says becoming part of the programme at the station has been enlightening.
“I knew about this Victim Empowerment Programme through my studies in criminology, but when you go to the different police stations, that was also part of my work, I would also look out to see, does that really exist or is it just in the textbooks and I didn’t see it in many police stations.”
So far, Clark has also attended to two cases – one was a rape, and the other an assault.
“And what is abundantly clear is that there is such a need for this programme. It doesn’t matter the race or a person’s standing in life, but things are happening in this country and not only here, we read about things overseas as well.”
Ansar Salie, chair of Wynberg CPF, says the commitment and dedication that he has seen from the entire VEP team is flawless.
“I am in a privileged position to visit other trauma rooms in other police stations and I am disappointed to say that the only police station that I see that has an effective and productive VEP is Wynberg Police. We as the CPF need to promote this to the other police stations to show this is what Wynberg Police is doing – you need to come on board.”
