Project Report
| Dec 22, 2021
Vulnerability Mapping Update & Podcast
![Introducing our Podcast series and logo]()
Introducing our Podcast series and logo
The following is a brief of the work which has taken place in the reporting period:
1. In continuation of our work in Madhya Pradesh to help vulnerable children and families in need of support to avail benefits of Government social welfare schemes, we organized a camp in the Indore district in which district child welfare authorities met close to 40 children and families identified by us from that particular area and reviewed their cases. As part of this project, we have completed the investigation of more than 150 cases of children and families in need of support in Madhya Pradesh and are following up with the authorities to provide them with support. There has, however, been little movement on the part of the Government authorities and we are still trying to figure out ways of getting these families linked with Government social welfare schemes by meeting different officials and responsible persons. We are now planning to simultaneously begin work on family and community strengthening in the state.
2. Together with a partner organization, we have taken up a pilot project for analyzing the case history of children residing in two of our partner child care institutions in Pune with the objective to identify children who can be potentially made legally free for adoption. In our experience of working with child care institutions, we have observed several cases of children who do not have contact with their parents / guardians but are still not considered for adoption because they have not been declared ‘legally free for adoption’ by the Child Welfare Committee. One reason for this is that the Child Welfare Committee does is unable to get information about such children, and this is the gap which we are trying to address through this pilot project.
As part of the pilot project, we are collecting information about reason for placement of children in the child care institution, information about their parents / guardians, and whether their parents / guardians have been in touch with them. Cases of children whose parents / guardians are not traceable or have not contacted them over more than a year are flagged for further investigation and if deemed fit, are produced before the district Child Welfare Committee. The Child Welfare Committee is then expected to carry out the process for declaring the child legally free for adoption if the case is considered fit by them.
We have analysed the case history of close to 150 children till date and have identified around 15 children who can be made legally free for adoption. Their cases will be produced before the Child Welfare Committee after due investigation.
3. As part of our effort to create better awareness about children growing up in difficult situations and the care and protection mechanisms available to them from the Government as per law, we released an 8-episode podcast series called ‘Care of the State’. This series has been created to help common people understand the plight of vulnerable children in India. The show breaks down complex issues of institutional care, fostering, adoption, aftercare, the role of organisations and government institutions and their responsibility to provide care and protection to these children. In this show, we interviewed experts from the field of child protection and asked them questions about the legal framework, struggles, how the pandemic affected vulnerable children and what needs to be done to provide a safe environment for these children to grow and reintegrate into society. All episodes of the show are out now and available for listening on
http://csa.podlink.to/careofthestate.
![Podcast series Poster]()
Podcast series Poster
![Podcast series Poster 2]()
Podcast series Poster 2
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