Now even children with poor chances of adoption like sexually abused children, abandoned children or children whose parents are terminally ill, or in prison can hope to be put up with a foster family. This new set of guidelines has been drafted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development under the charge of Maneka Gandhi with a view to increase non-institutional care of children.
The government said children below six years of age will not be ordinarily considered for placement in long term foster care as such small children should be preferably provided a permanent family through adoption. In a similar vein, the ministry will also discourage single parents from opting for foster care on the logic that the person may marry, which might lead to problems at a later stage.
The district child protection unit has been made the nodal authority for implementing the foster care programme in a district. All decisions related to placement of a child in foster care are to be taken by the child welfare committee of the district.
Adoption homes in India are currently full and adoption itself runs at a slow pace, partly due to the lengthy paperwork involved in it and due to people’s reluctance in adopting children with special needs and so on. Increasing dependency on foster care could just be what the system needs right now.
Foster system has existed in India right since the 60s, but hasn’t developed much beyond its infancy stage due to lack of personnel in keeping checks on foster homes. Particularly, abused children, mentally and physically disabled children, children whose parents are terminally ill or in prison were kept away from the foster system keeping in mind their special emotional needs and mitigating circumstances.
Now with them being inducted into the foster system too, they can hope for a family or some semblance of it, even if it is temporary. This would work well provided the government follows the checks and balances procedures that come with foster programmes down to the last letter.
Image Courtesy: BCCL
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