REPORT SEMINAR ON ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF CARE
BANGALORE, INDIA – FEBRUARY 11 AND 12, 2009
Organised by Aina Trust, facilitated by Ms Meera Pillai and Mrs Bep van Sloten
Supported by Cordaid and Kinderpostzegels from the Netherlands
(Mrs Julie Love and Mr. Jasper Oei from Cordaid and Mrs Karin Matthijsse from
Kinderpostzegels were present)
96 participants and resource persons, from 54 organisations and institutions
February 11, 2009
1. Opening words by Mrs Karin Matthijsse, Stichting Kinderpostzegels Nederland
2. Key note address by Prof. Lina Kashyap, Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Prof. Kashyap also gave the key note address during the Bangalore seminar in
November 2006 on alternative forms of care. This time she highlighted her
experience with institutional care, adoption and foster family care. She gave
some case studies from her own experience in Mumbai to highlight the
questions and experiences. She emphasised the need to for a shift in our
mindset: we need to not just provide children with the best possible services
that is covenient for us to provide but to place the child centre stage and
provide each child the kind of care which is in his or her best interest.
3. Session on Children in Need of Care and continuum of care options
Mrs Bep van Sloten explained the different ranges of care available for
children without adequate parental care: they range from kinship care and
informal fostering to residential care.
4. Session on Care Planning, Goal Setting and Triangle of Care
Though time was a little short, we did an interesting exercise on Care
Planning and Goal Setting. Care planning is used for case recording,
assignment of responsibility and to understand the child´s life events, for
progress reporting and to include the child´s views and wishes. Ideally, it
should be done before the child moves out of the family home and should be
reviewed periodically. It focuses on why the child is in care, where he or
she will live and what will happen during and after this stay. We were
encouraged to determine SMART goals for the child: specific, measurable,
action-oriented, result-oriented and time-bound.
This involved focusing on the needs of the children. Mrs Bep explained the
Care Triangle, which is an easy instrument to check whether all needs of the
child are met: the developmental needs of the child, the parenting capacities
of the caregivers and the family and environmental factors all are to be
taken into account. Specific issues are for instance building self-esteem and
confidence of the child, keeping the child safe, understanding of its own
family´s history, background and beliefs and the sense of belonging.
As an exercise each of us had to describe an individual child and after
selecting some of these children, we had to plan what where their three (3)
priority needs and develop an individual care plan for one of those needs. We
were also given a list of possible sources of information, knowledge and
support in planning for the child, starting with the child and stretching
from family, friends and community members to professional therapists and
counsellors. The exercise provided a methodology and orientation for care
planning that could be used as much in alternative care settings as in
institutional settings, using the different aspects of the Care Triangle as a
starting point.
The advantage of such care planning, when implemented well,
is that it eliminates the “squeaky wheel gets the grease” phenomenon which is
a risk when caring for significant numbers of children outside parental care,
and all the aspects that contribute to the child’s development can be planned
for in a proactive manner for all children in care.
Issues raised by the participants
-
The care plan and the triangle are useful but require a lot of time of
staff to complete. How can we manage for all children to develop and
update such care plan?
-
Caregivers (such as grandparents) are thinking of their own interest
instead of the best interest of the child. How to convince them?
5. Regional working groups on finding resources on alternative care in the
region and feedback
We split up in 5 groups: Andra Pradesh & Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka,
Bihar, U.P. & Jharkhand, and a national group. Several resources were shared.
In general, Southern states had a better support system already available
than Northern states. One thing that strongly emerged was the need to
identify what government support schemes are already available within the own
state. Many schemes are not well-known. Karnataka for instance has a scheme
for support to single (widowed) mothers. Bihar apparently has a rather new
alternative care scheme to prevent trafficking in flood-affected areas.
6. Performance by the children in alternative care from Aina Trust, APSA,
Chiguru and Navajeevan, supported by dr. Shekhar Shesadri
February 12, 2009
1. Recap of the previous day by Mr. Ashish Anthony, IGSSS
2. Sharing of initiatives in Alternative Care
Mrs Mary Chelladurai, Aina Trust on Kinship care
Mr. Rajendra Meher, YCDA on Prevention of abandonment and community based
care
Fr. Thomas Koshy, Navajeevan, on Small group homes and formal foster care
Mrs Mary Chelladurai, on the exposure visit of Kinderpostzegels parters on
foster care, to Norfil in the Philippines.
All presentations were interesting and met with many questions. Especially
the fact that the first pilots focused a lot on prevention of abandonment and
family break up were matters of discussion. As explained, it is part of the
continuum of care for children without parental care, though formally not a
form of alternative care. Government policies and support are essential in
this field, as the number of families in need of such support are too large
for any NGO to handle.
3. Market place of workshops and resources
In 6 small groups and sessions of 15 minutes, all participants attended small
presentations by several very knowledgeable resource persons and were able to
ask every question possible.
- Mrs Mary Paul of Vathsalya on the requirements of suitable foster care
families
- Mr. Rajendra Meher on monitoring of alternative care arrangements and the
safety of children in non-residential care;
- Fr. Thomas Koshy and Mrs Sheila Devaraj of APSA on the Role of Child
Welfare Committees in alternative care; - Care for the children ends at the
age of 18 as well as the role of the CWC. But do we know what happens after
the age of 18?
- Mrs Nina Nayak of KSCCW on strengthening foster care families and the role
of the government in ensuring sustainability;
- Mrs Bharati Ghate of Shishu Adhar Kendra on protection and alternative care
for children in disaster situations - attention was given on identification
and reunification of children with their family after a disaster. A point of
focus was advice or follow up action on preventing measures that parents and
families can take to reduce the number of lost or missed children in disaster
prone areas;
- Mrs Mary Chelladurai on Strenghtening families in need, to prevent
abandonment of children.
4. Session on the Better Care Network (BCN) Netherlands and International, by
Mrs Bep van Sloten, coordinator of the Better Care Network Netherlands
The BCN Netherlands was started to organise the exchange of knowledge and
experiences.
An additional objective was to lobby policy makers, stakeholders and donors
about the importance of family and community based alternative care. Mrs Bep
has shared some successes and challenges of BCN Netherlands and gave some
suggestions for networking in India and with the Better Care Network
International.
5. Session on building the policy framework to promote alternative care
Chaired my Mrs Bharati Gate and with speakers from the governments of
Rajasthan (Mr. Bhagirath) and Maharashtra (Mr. Pawnikar and Mr. Desawale), as
well as Mr. Sonykutty George from UNICEF
Both the governments of Rajasthan and Maharashtra have extensive policy
frameworks on prevention of family separation and support of alternative
care. The government officials have presented their experiences and some
examples, and have promised to share their government policies with us, so
they can be used to lobby governments in other states.
Mr. George from UNICEF emphasised the need for de-institutionalisation, as it
is another very important component, next to prevention of separation. Many
children currently staying in residential facilities do have (extended)
families and can go back, putting them in a much better situation for their
overall development. This matter had not been addressed yet during this
seminar and he calls on all of us to work very actively on deinstitutionalisation, as well as collecting and sharing good practices on
alternative care. So many good things are happening and we need to share this
information with each other. This was followed by an interesting discussion
on options for networking in India.
6. Performance by W-ISH group, youth from difficult circumstances supported by
APSA
7. Commitments from partners on the practical implementation of their
resolutions with regard to alternative care:
- Vikash offers to build a website on this issue, to enable us to exchange
information;
- the Orissa State Level Task force will continue and is considering
installing a coordinator;
- many partners will organise local, state level or regional workshops on
alternative care in U.P., Bihar, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Orissa;
- many partners will organise meetings with Child Welfare Committees and
Juvenile Justice Boards in their area or state on this issue;
- UNICEF gave their commitment to this process and promised to pilot
alternative care in the area they were working in, in Maharashtra;
- an e-exchange between the organisations from the regional working groups in
Andhra Pradesh and Orissa;
- networks like the Campaign against Child Labour (CACL), Campaign against
Child Trafficking (CACT), the HAQ Centre for Child Rights and the Juvenile
Justice Network (JJN) will back up the alternative care process and will
inform their members;
- partners were invited to respond to a draft Disability Policy for the state
of Jharkhand, which will be circulated by Chotanagpur Sanskritik Sangh, the
author of the draft and which will include a paragraph on alternative care
for children with disabilities;
- some individual partner organisations currently involved in institutional
care (e.g., Don Bosco Anbu
Illam, Chennai,) made small commitments to
transfer some children currently in institutional care to kinship care and
also find unrelated foster families for others.
Navajeevan Bala Bhavan,
Vijayawada, which has already experimented with small group homes and foster
care for children who come within its purview, has committed to find similar
options for children in government homes in Krishna district of Andhra
Pradesh.
8. Kinderpostzegels and Cordaid thanked everybody for their active and
enthusiastic participation and their commitment to the best interest of
vulnerable children. Especially the involvement of so many knowledgeable,
committed and professional persons from the government of Rajasthan and
Maharashtra, NGOs, CWCs and UNICEF was very much appreciated, as well as the
open mindedness of the participating NGOs and individuals. Aina Trust has
hosted this seminar wonderfully and the facilitation by Ms Meera Pillai and
Mrs. Bep van Sloten has also exceeded expectations.