Child Care Institutions

Posted On: 2021-08-18 14:03:48

Children needing care

Children need a loving and caring family to nurture them and inculcate the right values in them. But, alas! Many children lack the proper housing and care they need for their development from a young child to a grown adult. These children have gone through unfavorable situations of abandonment, homelessness, being trafficked, orphaned, being in conflict with the law, being sexually abused, being mentally challenged, being victims of child pornography, child marriage, and many of them whose parents are alive but are unable to take care of them. These unfavorable situations leave a mark on these children minds and they struggle with a lot of issues which is explained in our other blog which you can read by clicking on (ORPHAN BLOG LINK)

 

Child Care Institutions (CCIs)

The best care that can be provided to these children is through adoption by the right people. But as the adoption count is barely 5000 kids per year that too most of them are adopted when they are younger than 12 months, to get this adoptive care is not possible for these children.

 

This need was recognized by the ‘Ministry of Women and Child Development’ (WCD) and Child Care Institutions(CCIs) like Children Home, Special Home, Place of safety, Open Shelter,  Observation Home, Specialized adoption Agency and other types of safe places were established under the Juvenile Justice Act(Care and Protection Act for children), 2015. The main motive behind CCIs is to give the needy children basic facilities and a safe and healthy environment away from abuse, violence, neglect, exploitation, and help them to grow and prosper in their life. 

 

The National Policy for children enacted in 2013 follows UNICEFs Convention on the Rights of Child that states, “the State shall endeavor to secure the rights of children temporarily or permanently deprived of parental care, by ensuring family and community-based care arrangements including sponsorship, kinship, foster care, and adoption, with institutionalization as a measure of last resort, with due regard to the best interests of the child and guaranteeing quality standards of care and protection”.

 

The government’s role

The government maps and reviews these CCIs across the country and makes sure each one of them is legalized and provides standard care to the children by visiting them regularly. This helps in creating a detailed database of CCIs providing long-term or residential care for vulnerable children. According to the 2017 survey taken in 9589 CCIs, both registered and unregistered, 91% of the CCIs are run by Non- governmental organizations (NGOs), and only 9% are supported by the government. Even though registration is mandatory, only 32% of the total CCIs are registered under JJ Act. This means that these institutions remain unmonitored which is an issue of concern and these children can be exploited or trafficked easily. Tamil Nadu has the highest number of CCIs i.e. 1,647 and it also has the largest number of abandoned children which is 1326.

 

The challenges of CCIs and solutions

Most of these CCIs lack the proper staffing needed for the care of the care-deprived children. It can be noticed that there are many vacancies in the CCIs, by which the worsening staff situation can be assumed. This shortage of staff is a challenge in the way of giving effective facilities to the children. Another challenge is that the already recruited staff are not professionally trained in taking care of these innocent souls. This issue can be solved if proper training programs of treating the children with sensitivity, listening to their issues from time to time, and acting accordingly, making sure they feel safe around them are introduced for these staff members. Well-experienced psychologists should be employed for these children’s mental care, and the vacant positions in the CCIs should be filled immediately with trained staff. Also if required, extra staff should be employed to ensure due care and protection to children.

 

Infrastructure

The infrastructure of the Child Care Institutions includes classrooms, dormitories, counseling room, recreation room, sick room, library, visitors area, dining hall, staff residence, proper washrooms, Toilet facilities, and storeroom. Most of the CCIs, due to the shortage of space, do not include all of these facilities. Many of the CCIs, mostly the unregistered ones, take funds from NGOs and the government to the extent of the Institution but the funds are never used for the same. This can be solved if the government pays close attention during the construction and the right usage of the funds allocated.

 

 

Crimes in CCIs

Illegal Adoption is a sensitive topic and is against the law but it still takes place in many CCIs. To lower the number of children in the CCIs, many of these institutions allow the adoption of some children especially physically and mentally disabled children without much verification. Many of the NRIs reach out to CCIs for adopting children and some of these institutions comply with this for the additional money they receive. At times, CCIs traffic children in them to increase the number of children they have enrolled and with which they can have increased funds. This can be resolved if close monitoring is done in the CCIs and the personnel should talk to children frequently to get to know the state of the CCIs better. 

 

Funding CCIs

The funds received by the CCIs are from different sources like individual donors, government grants, non-government organizations and some of this funding comes from foreign sources. They lack financial transparency as there is no necessary system for maintaining/ documenting financial records, which is another major concern. This concern can be solved by including strict laws in the CCIs.

 

Overall it can be said that the shareholders and the concerned authorities should conduct regular inspections and monitor every action. They should make recommendations and suggestions that can bring a positive change. And if any illegal activity or wrongdoings are found in these institutions, they must be adequately dealt with.

 

Crowdfunding and CCIs

As mentioned, most of the CCIs are run by NGOs i.e. they need funds for running and supporting the CCIs. Crowdfunding platforms give these kinds of NGOs and in turn the institutions a place where people can donate to them and help them support and take care of the children in need of their help. 

 

The Child Help Foundation (CHF) is a national-level NGO with programs in health, water and sanitation, education, gender equality, zero hunger, calamity relief, life on land, and life below water. It is one of the NGOs that supports more than 10 CCIs across the country that holds more than 560 children in the age range from 4-16. They fund these institutions which they collect by raising funds on some crowdfunding platforms and at the same time help the institutions conduct various activities for the children. Some of the institutions are Special Joy of school in Jharkhand, Ashraya Rehabilitation Centre in Odisha, Adarsh home for orphaned children in Hyderabad, Saraswati Anat Shikshan Ashram in Pune, Desire Society in Goregaon and Vashi, and many more of them across the country. 

 

 

If maintained and looked after properly, these institutions can become the best place where the needy and victimized children can be raised in a loving environment and this can lessen their trauma and help them grow into a better version of themselves. 

 

“Children are the future, helping them be trauma-free and grow into a better version of themselves will lead to our better future.”

 

Author : Hritika Singh