Foster Care for 100 Orphan Children in India

Concept:

Millions of children live outside of family care and without the love and nurturing of family members. Research has shown repeatedly that children living outside of family care experience negative effects on their development and may be amongst the most that are susceptible to violence, abuse and exploitation.

Families are at the heart of our solution. A safe and caring family is what gives a child the most stable start and equips the child to live a fulfilling life. We work to support families who are at risk of separation, as a preventive approach by strengthening the families and provide a family to children who are deprived of it. We explore various Alternative Care options, which include Foster Care, Group Foster Care, Kinship Care, Aftercare, etc. We work with Government, child protection mechanism and strengthen community level service delivery structures.

YCDA considers that Foster care is the best option for the family and community to give care & protection who are in need .This care arrangement is the most beneficial and desirable environment for the healthy growth & development of a children.

YCDA started the Foster care & Group foster care initiatives for the first time in the state of Odisha after due lunching of ICPS. YCDA is now supporting more than 100 children in Foster care & Group Foster Care in Boudh, Balangir & Khurda districts of Odisha.Foster care is a system of non-institutional family-based care under which a child lives with a family other than his/her biological family. Foster families should preferably have cultural, tribal and/or community identities that are similar to that of the child. There are two type of Foster care: One is family foster care where maximum two children placed in a family & other is Group Foster care where a group of 6 to 8 children including biological children are living in a family.

Child Welfare Committee (CWC) and District Child Protection Unit (DCPU) monitor both the arrangements.

During the implementation of family based care arrangement, YCDA has been rehabilitated more than 500 CNCP in Foster care and Group foster care arrangement as per the best interest of the child.

Key Progress during the period:

¬ Promotion of Foster care:

During this period, with legal procedures 3  more children have been placed in the Foster families. They are being well taken care of by their respective foster parents. Their education has been ensured and they are going to school regularly they access the basic needs like food, clothes ,shelter & education . We are doing regular counseling to the children, carers & also biological parents. We are providing a family based care arrangements to the Children in need of care & protection with the support of statutory bodies like CWC & DCPU in the districts. Presently, 5 more families have been identified and with the legal process /procudures the families has been applied to District child protection Unit for Fit declaration for Fostering to take a child.

¬Drop in Centre:

The drop in centre helps the children in reducing their depression and back to family.The drop in centers opened by YCDA in different strategic location is helping the children to reduce their depression and anguish in many ways.The children coming to the Child Welfare Committee for the purpose of production are accessing the drop in centre for the short time through which the children are getting counseling properly, motivated them for the family based care. During the period, 17 children came to the centre ,where we counseled them in a child friendly way &  made the child to engage in the drop in centre with different in house games, pictures, arts, drawings and storytelling books with an objective to reduce the anxiety, and depression.

During his or her short stay the child’s where’s about is identified and communicated to CWC accordingly. Whether he or she is child or adolescent but the special counselors & peer educators help them to understand their difficulties, interacted with them and support them in taking decision on back to family or for Alternative family based care.

¬Need based Support:

To assess the development of supported children, YCDA staffs visit to all 100 children along with a structured tool. The Village Child Protection Committee, particular child and community participate in the process. It helps to the team to learn the impact of support, challenges, and thereafter take appropriate action.100 children were assessed to continue to get need based kind support. The family’s situation gets reviewed in quarterly basis and the action plan is made as per their need. Children need the necessary support for survival, such as food packets, health care, educational materials, clothes, shoes, psychosocial support and economic self-sufficiency.During this period, YCDA has been provided the infrastuctural materials like furnitures,toys, games etc. , Education study materials, school bags, tuition fees, food packets & dresses, as per the needs of the supported children.

¬Monitoring visit to Family:

Follow up visit and monitoring is the major part of the program to strengthen the system. The social worker regularly visits the children, care givers and counseled them. During the visit, the social workers interacted with the children independently of the physical presence of the parent so that the child feels free and confident to talk. All the 100 children are in family based care. Time to time along with YCDA, Child welfare committee & District child Protection unit are also going for monitored ,interacted with the neighbors to assess the progress & safety of the children. At previous children seems to lack of confidence, dull & sorrow all the time. But now, in a family environment, the level of confidence, education has been increased & which help them to flowering of their personalities & well for the future.

¬Family strengthening & Reintegration:

During this period, YCDA has been focused on the family strengthening programme for the family get interested for the foster care and the family who have sent their children either to Child care institutions or interested to put their children in other care arrangement.YCDA believes that unless & until the family is socio economically sound they can’t look after the children or they will not take care of their children. Looking into these issues, we have been able to work on the family strengthening for the vulnerable families. The identified families were assessed and tracked the socio economic status and with the support of the govt. schemes linkages & IGP the family income has been increased and children out of parental care are being repatriated and reintegrated in their family for their growth and development.During the period, 5 nos. of families have strengthened to take back their children to the family.

Hii..Telling you ours story...

We both brothers thank you all for your help & support

Our parents are migrant laborers. We use to go with them and help them in bricks making.One day my mother left us with father and gone away somewhere. Then after my father also do not want to take our burden & came to Child welfare committee to give them both of us. Then after, we got a new Father & Mother They love us very much & we are happy here. There are two new brothers of ours with whom We play, eat, learn together. We are also now going to school regularly. My small bother starts learning new rhymes & poems which feels me very happy .Also he plays a role of Gandhiji in our Independence Day celebration at school.

Thanks to Supporters & Global giving to bring hope to our life…

• YCDA Progress Report on Foster Care Program (PDF)