Family and Community Based Services for Children

1. FAMILY AND COMMUNITY BASED SERVICES
FOR CHILDREN

2. INTRODUCTION
In today’s world, a vulnerable group needing
recognition beyond generic documents and
principles is that of children. Perhaps more than
the other groups, children need special protection
because of their fragile state of development, as
they are readily susceptible to abuse and neglect.
Thus, a child should have the basic rights to:
• Be protected against neglect, cruelty, abuse and
exploitation
• Safe housing, healthcare, education that prepares
them for future
• Be a unique person whose individuality is
protected from violation
• Prepare for responsibilities of parenthood, family
life and citizenship.

3. THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF
HUMAN RIGHTS
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other
UN documents echo a similar need to protect the
child. As indicated in the Declaration on the Rights of
the Child, “the child, by reason of his physical and
mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and
care, including appropriate legal protection, before as
well as after birth” (United Nations, 1989).

4. CHILDREN AND MENTAL HEALTH
The National Policy for Children (1974) affirmed the
constitutional provisions and declared that the policy
of the state is to provide adequate services to children
to ensure their full physical, mental and social
development.

5. FACTORS AFFECTING
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN
 Family influences
 Providing stimulation to learn
 Social/ cultural exposure
 Problem-solving strategies
 Style of parent-child interaction
 Structure of daily routine
 Family involvement
 Parenting

6. STATUS OF CHILDREN — SOME FACTS
Close to 137 million of the young citizens or nearly 30% (India Report
— UN General Assembly Special Session on Children, May 2002) of
our child population come from marginalized families and live below
the poverty line in an acute state of deprivation with little or no
access to certain minimum services which we take for granted such
as safe drinking water, primary health facilities, universal primary
education, adequate nutrition at the school and preschool level and
shelter.
Coupled with poverty, they are known to face
problems within their families due to illiteracy,
lack of employment opportunities (especially
in rural India), alcoholism, disability, HIV,
AIDS, chronic illnesses, death, desertion by
father, migration, natural calamities etc.
These grave financial, social and emotional
pressures seem to shake the very foundation
of millions of our families thus affecting the
most vulnerable members, the children who
end up being neglected , often falling out of
the family’s security net.

7. FAMILY AND COMMUNITY BASED SERVICES FOR
CHILDREN — GOVERNMENT’S STAND
A response to the needs of many of these children both by
the government and the community is caring for them in
institutions which go by different names like shelters,
orphanages, half-way homes, day care centers, fit persons
institutions, foundling homes, Ashram schools and so on.
Several departments of the government such as Social
Welfare, Backward Classes and Minorities, Women and
Child development etc run these residential care facilities
and also offer grant-in-aid to non-governmental
organizations.
A number of public trusts, religious charities and
philanthropic organizations and even individuals run
similar institutions with public support.

8. FAMILY AND COMMUNITY BASED SERVICES FOR
CHILDREN — GOVERNMENT’S STAND (CONT.)
Child care institutions provide education and residential care
and offer services greatly valued by families who live in
extreme deprivation. The quality of education provided in
institutions being comparatively better than the free
education provided by the State, it is no wonder that an
increasing number of families flock to institutionalize their
children most often by sending them to hostels.

9. TYPES OF SERVICES AVAILABLE FOR
CHILDREN
1. Institutional care
2. Families
3. Sponsorship programmes
4. Day care centers
5. Adoption Agencies
6. Foster care
7. Other policies

10. The larger majority of children in institutions
(over 90%) have one or both parents with whom
majority are in touch with. Mostly the
orphans, abandoned and destitute
children, working and street children, juvenile
offenders, children of sex workers or child sex
workers, children engaging in substance
abuse, AIDS affected children, children with
disability etc. Are being referred for institutional
care.
The age of discharge from such institutions is
18 years or on completion of the school-leaving
examination when children return to live in the
community independently or with their families
and kith and kin.

11. Children need a nurturing, protective and
caring environment during their formative
years and from time immemorial the family
has proved to be the basic social unit which
fulfills these needs. It offers children a legal
status and promotes a sense of belonging.
Socialization and development of emotional
ties within and outside the family are shaped
by the early experiences within the family. A
mess-like or a non-home situation can never
substitute for a caring family life and equip
children to face the world.

12. The sponsorship programme is currently one of the most
effective services in the country which is preserving a
number of poor urban families. It has bilateral and
international funding agencies such as Save the Children
Fund, Child Relief and You (CRY), Plan International,
Christian Children Fund, Action Aid etc, which has
began providing sponsorship support to children either
directly or in partnership with local non-governmental
organizations working with marginalized communities.
A sponsorship programme offers supervised financial
assistance to pay for day care/ school/ vocational
training and could include nutrition, healthcare and
improving community services.
It is generally made possible only through the care and
concern of a sponsor who provides the financial
assistance to sponsor a child through an agency.

13. Caring for pre-school children during the day is
a service gaining popularity in the country today
with an increasing number of women seeking
employment.
Day care centers for the two plus age group
almost always include a preschool component.
The Anganwadis run through the Government of
India’s Integrated Child Development Services
scheme serves marginalized families and is a
major day-care scheme covering over 18.5
million children below the age of six years. It
provides a package of services for children and
includes health and nutrition education for
mothers with the objective of enhancing the
childcare capabilities of the mother. It offers
daycare services to children for three to four
hours a day while their mothers are working.

14. For one or more reasons a number of children are
abandoned or orphaned leaving them without family
contact. Therefore, adoption would be the best
rehabilitation option as it offers permanency of
relationships — a family for a child and a child for a
family.
It is a legal and social process by which the child of one
set of parents becomes the child of another set of
parents. Adoption is best arranged through a licensed
adoption placement agency which cares for adoptable
children and offers professional support to families
seeking a child in terms of preparing them for adoption.
In India, there is no uniform law of adoption. Only Hindus
can legally adopt a child under the Hindu Adoption and
Maintenance Act (HAMA), 1956 which allows only
Hindus to adopt a child and does not permit the adoption
of two children of the same sex.

15. Foster care refers to the provision of planned,
time limited , temporary substitute family care
for a child who cannot remain in his/her home
(either temporarily or permanently) due to a
family crisis or problem. It provides a child an
opportunity to live in a family environment while
a permanent family solution is being explored.
Foster care seems particularly suitable for older
children who have been through long years of
institutional care or survived on the streets or
spent hard years on their own families and find
it difficult to bond closely to adults.
Today, foster care is also being redefined to
include day foster care, night foster care .
Weekend foster care, short-term foster care,
long-term foster care etc. within an institution
under a housemother

16. National Health Policy
The Government of India, Ministry of Health & Family
Welfare developed and published the “National Health
Policy” in 1983. The document gave a general exposition
of the policies. The National Health Policy was endorsed
by the Parliament of India in 1983 and updated in 2002.
In brief, the draft constitutes a return to the concept of
centrally-directed, institution-based health care. A
further perusal of the document throws up many
fundamental concerns such as the creation of an
infrastructure for primary healthcare; close co-
ordination with health-related services and activities
(like nutrition, drinking water supply and sanitation);
active involvement and participation of voluntary
organisations; provision of essential drugs and vaccines;
qualitative improvement in health and family planning
services; provision of adequate training; and medical
research aimed at the common health problems of the
people. The draft recommends an increase in public
health expenditure from the present 0.9 per cent of GDP
to 2.0 per cent in 2010.

17. National Rural Health Mission
National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) is an Indian health
program for improving health care delivery across rural
India. The mission, initially mooted for 7 years (2005-
2012), is run by the Ministry of Health. The scheme proposes
a number of new mechanisms for healthcare delivery
including training local residents as Accredited Social
Health Activists (ASHA), and the Janani Surakshay Yojana
(motherhood protection program). It also aims at improving
hygiene and sanitation infrastructure.
The mission has a special focus on 18 states Arunachal
Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal
Pradesh, Jharkhand, Jammu and
Kashmir, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Madhya
Pradesh, Nagaland, Orissa, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Utta
rakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
The largest programme under NRHM, covering India's most
populous state, Uttar Pradesh, has been clouded by a large-
scale corruption scandal in which two apex health officials
have been murdered. The state government headed by
Chief Minister Mayawati has been accused of fraud to the
tune of Rs. 10,000 crores (USD2 billion)

18. CONCLUSION
It is high time we reflect
on the magnitude and
diversity of challenges
children and families face
in India and make a strong
assertion for an explicit
national family policy and
a comprehensive child
welfare legislation to
include provisions which
uphold the rights of al
children especially those
in difficult circumstances
to grow up in families and
in the larger communities.

19. THANKS….