Community Based Care through Sponsorship- Mechanisms of and Best Practice Models by Rainbow Homes Program

Sponsorship COMMUNITY BASED ALTERNATIVE CARE

Best Practice Models by NGOs

Knowledge Development and Dissemination Centre of Rainbow Homes Program prepared this report for private circulation. We would like to pay our sincere thanks to all the staff of sample organizations selected for this study for sharing their practice, challenges and learnings with us.

Any part of this report may be reproduced for educational and other non-commercial purposes without written permission, but with appropriate acknowledgment of the source.

Credits

Author: Team, Knowledge Development & Dissemination Centre (KDDC), Rainbow Homes Program – Association for Rural and Urban Needy (ARUN)

Photo Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/

Printed by: Print World, Delhi

Contact:

RAINBOW HOMES PROGRAM

Vijaya Lakshmi Avenue, Flat No: 2&3, H. No. :1-3-183/40/21/53, Road Number: 5, P&T colony, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad -500080 Ph.: 040-27660017 | www.rainbowhome.in

COMMUNITY BASED ALTERNATIVE CARE Sponsorships

ABSTRACT

The international human rights law and policy makers establish the primacy of family for a child and accord a high priority to the continuum of care. India has recently been advocating for a transition from institutionalisation to the deinstitutionalisation of children in need of care and protection. Although non-institutional alternative care is considered to be in the best interests of the child, its acceptance is limited. This report reflects different programmes and resource components that may be promoted to keep children with either their own family or within alternative family care, satisfying the rights of their overall development. It documents the lack of synergy between resource allocations and existing government programmes, policies and plans of action for child protection which is why CCIs continue to be identified as the ultimate and the most common response for children at risk. It documents National and International Legal and Policy Instruments such as existing Acts, Rules, policies and Guidelines in India on community-based care especially Sponsorship.

The report provides best practice and challenges of sample NGO practising community-based care through individual or group sponsorship and provide guideline based on key informant’s opinion about how to implement such model. Lastly it suggests viable options that may be helpful for providing community based/family based alternative care for children through Sponsorship and community interventions.

Executive Summary

Despite the fact that children are considered to be the most important asset of the nation, they constitute one of the most vulnerable groups of the society. India with the largest child population in the world with 430 million children (GOI, 2011), 40 percent i.e., 170 million were estimated as destitute children and out of them 12 percent (20 million) were orphans, having lost one or both parents (GOI, 2011). The number of children living separate from their biological parents or who are at the risk of separation is rapidly increasing in India. The causes for separation can be from death of one or both parents, displacement due to armed conflict and/or natural disasters, neglect or abuse at home, abandonment, trafficking, dysfunctional family structure or simply the inability of the family to provide care. To develop to their full potential, children need safe and stable housing, adequate and nutritious food, access to medical care, secure relationships with adult caregivers, nurturing and responsive parenting and quality learning opportunities at home, in child care settings and in school.1

Alternative care takes several forms, and includes formal and informal care as well as temporary and permanent care. While some forms of alternative care in India are currently regarded as well established, such as institutional care, adoption, and informal kinship care, other forms of community based alternative care such as sponsorship, formal kinship care etc, need to be strengthened by government and non-government organisations to create a continuum of services that are capable of meeting the needs of the most vulnerable children and families.2

1 2016, Terre des hommes Foundation; Frequently asked questions on Alternative Care for Children in India: An overview of concepts and processes

2 Terre des hommes Foundation, FAQs on Alternative Care for- Children in India: An overview of concept & processes

lack of synergy between resource allocation and existing government programmes, policies and plans of action for child protection.

Rainbow Homes Programme has been exclusively working on the issues of Street Children through implementing a comprehensive residential care programme for the street children. One of the key objectives of Rainbow Homes programme is to slowly reintegrate children with the families after a thorough assessment of each family’s economic and social condition to assess whether families are ready to take care of the children with some additional supports from Rainbow.

In view of the directives from The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) to reintegrate the children in CCIs with their parents whereas children without parents are to be sent to the Foster Care Institutions or Sponsorships. Hence, Rainbow Homes Program started initiating alternative care models such as. I) Sponsorship support and ii) Foster Care support for the children under its care who needs family supports as well as long terms supports.

While RHP initiates the above-mentioned alternative care models for children under its care, it was felt important to have deeper understanding of different aspects of Alternative Care Program undertaken globally. The present study focuses on Sponsorship program for disadvantaged children in the communities. The rationale behind undertaking this study is to understand the processes and components of Alternative care models, particularly Sponsorship, provide learnings and best practices on the mechanisms adopted by different organizations in India.

This study was carried out to understand the processes and components of Alternative care models, particularly focusing on Sponsorship programme. The study proposes to include i) desk research to understand processes of these programs by different organizations outside India; ii) Individual Interactions or FGDs with NGO representatives in different cities practicing Sponsorship programs to understand their processes and challenges, iii) Interaction with government officials to know the status and processes of implementation of sponsorship component under ICPS. The study also, very briefly documents Rainbow Home Program’s efforts and mechanism in implementing the community-based care program with children under the care of RHP.

Apart from literature reviews, collecting information from key informants in selected sample organizations in the field of child care was the important component of data collection in this study. In this regard, key informant organizations were contacted for Individual interactions or Focused group discussions with semi-structured questionnaire to collect information and understand the informant’s reflections on how to start the implementation of community-

based care and what interventions should help in attaining self-sustainability in alternative community-based care for children.

The study had encountered several limitations like Inability to visit to implementing areas. There was little scope at the time of conceiving this study, owing to the pandemic situation. The absence of documentation on practical interventions available in public domain, such as community mobilization strategies or interventions for community-based care, implementation strategies, budgets allocated etc. in want of these information at hand the researchers had to rely on secondary resources as well as the information narrated by the selected organization during interviews. Further, in the absence guideline from department on its different component, understanding component wise allocation on sponsorship could not be possible. Therefore, budgets allocated and needed could not be estimated adequately. The desk review of the relevant literature on sponsorship and its statutory provisions suggests that; the Constitution of India guarantees Fundamental Rights to all children in the country and empowers the State to make special provisions for children. The State is responsible for ensuring that childhood is protected from exploitation and moral and material abandonment. Declaring its children as the nation’s “supremely important asset” in the National Policy for Children, 1974, the Government of India reiterated its commitment to secure the rights of its children by ratifying related international conventions and treaties including the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its Covenants, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its two Optional Protocols, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect of Inter-Country Adoption etc.

Child sponsorship is a child focused programme evolved over period of time under the humanitarian voluntary organizations as a formal organized service towards facilitating the poor and marginalised children to realize their rights for survival, development, protection and participation. The national flagship scheme-Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) is designed to be implemented at all levels- central, regional, state, and district. Along with other objectives one specific objective ICPS is envisaged for the rehabilitation and reintegration of children through family-based non-institutional care such as, Sponsorship, Foster care, adoption and after care. Sponsorship is the provision of supplementary/alternative care support to families to meet medical, nutritional, educational and other needs of their children with a view to improving their quality of life.

Under this legal framework several national and local organizations are practicing sponsorship programme in the country. The study interacted with seven sample organizations to know more about their models and different aspects of child sponsorship based on a structured list of questions that included; types of sponsorship and profile of children; Identification and placement process; Sponsor-child connection; Components and interventions; Staff structure; Trainings; Costs and funding; Challenges and Suggestions. The sponsorship

organizations covered were; World Vision, Hope Foundation, Baliga Trust, Child Fund, Plan India, Community Aid and Sponsorship Programme and India Sponsorship Committee. This interaction resulted in documentation of best practice and challenges of sample NGO practising community-based care through individual or group sponsorship.

The study concludes with summarizing viable options that may be helpful for providing community/ family based alternative care for children through Sponsorship and community interventions. It suggests that Identification and assessment of vulnerability criteria is vital and therefore has to be part of the main community-based program design. It has been experienced by the implementing organization that gaining trust, organizing communities, networking, resource mobilizations etc. are some of the key barriers hence, strengthening, motivating, training and capacity building of Social Workers is an essential investment for any organization. In order to enable the children, protect themselves and creating safe space for them it will be essential to empower children about their rights. Finally, it suggests that converging with government machineries, advocacy with local government, and supporting them in strengthening the existing child protection mechanisms stands critical. And so support for a government to strengthen national alternative care system and child protection programs should be based on local needs and priorities, which can be identified through a needs assessments or situation analysis.

BACKGROUND & METHGODOLOGY

Children are considered to be the most important asset of the nation. However, at the same time, they constitute one of the most vulnerable groups of the society. India with the largest child population in the world with 430 million children (GOI, 2011), 40 percent i.e., 170 million were estimated as destitute children and out of them 12 percent (20 million) were orphans, having lost one or both parents (GOI, 2011). Statistics show that around 42 percent of the married women in India were married as children (CRY, 2017). UNICEF data says that despite a significant decrease in the incidents of child marriage in India, one in every three child brides in the world is Indian (UNICEF, 2014).

01

INTRODUCTION

The Constitution of India guarantees Fundamental Rights to all children in the country and empowers the State to make special provisions for children. For example, article 39(f) requires the state to direct its policy towards securing that child is given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner, in conditions of freedom and dignity, such that children and youth are protected against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment. There are several policies, laws, rules and schemes of our country guaranteeing protection and ensuring improved quality of life of children. However, India's economic successes have not resulted in an improved quality of life for everyone in the world, especially children. There are children in rural areas, slums and poor urban families, catalogued castes, indigenous communities and other disadvantaged populations who suffer from multiple deprivations related to poverty, malnutrition, access to quality health services, child marriage, poor school attendance, low learning outcomes, lack of sanitation, Hygiene and access to improved water.

Children in especially difficult circumstances (CIDC) are those children who are for shorter or longer periods in their lives, exposed to intense multiple risks to their physical and mental health. A common characteristic of these children is that they lack proper adult care and protection and that they lead their lives outside mainstream society (UNECAP, 2008). The number of children living separate from their biological parents or who are at the risk of separation is rapidly increasing in India. The causes for separation can be from death of one or both parents, displacement due to armed conflict and/or natural disasters, neglect or abuse at home, abandonment, trafficking, dysfunctional family structure or simply the inability of the family to provide care. To develop to their full potential, children need safe and stable housing, adequate and nutritious food, access to medical care, secure relationships with adult caregivers, nurturing and responsive parenting and quality learning opportunities at home, in child care settings and in school.3

3 2016, Terre des hommes Foundation; Frequently asked questions on Alternative Care for Children in India: An overview of concepts and processes

Children without parental care include those living in child-headed households, foster care, residential care, detention, on the street, orphan as well as those who are trafficked, associated with armed groups, unaccompanied children seeking asylum, or separated from their families as a result of poverty, parental death, disease, disability, discrimination, substance abuse, violencelikecommunaldisturbance, neglect, abuse, conflict, disaster, or migration.

Researches show that children's early experiences shape who they are and affect lifelong health and learning. Perspectives on the family both as an entity and as a producer of developmental outcomes of its members (Kreppner and Lerner 1989) depict it as a social context or "climate" facilitating the individual's entry into other social contexts and as an environmental factor containing both genetically shared and non-shared components for the developing individual.4 Parental care boosts the short-term cognition of the children and they develop socially and emotionally. Similarly, it helps in long-term success in academics and later life. A large number of children face instability in their lives if they are deprived of their basic need to develop in family environment. Even UNCRC outlines family as the fundamental unit of the society and critical for the growth, wellbeing and protection of children.

India faces a humongous task of caring and protecting a large number of out-of-home care children and giving them the opportunities to grow to their full potential. Over time, institutional care has become the solution adopted towards the care for children without parental care, rather than the measure of last resort because the Government’s failure to protect these children. There are government recognised and unrecognised organization across India running Child Care Institutions for these out-of-home care children taking care of their shelter need, treatment needs, education & training needs, development and protection needs. While care and protection are fundamental to institutional child care, rehabilitation and social reintegration are equally and immensely important for children as they grow up to become adults.

However, important to note that the focus of child care in India as well as in many countries across the world has shifted from institutional to family or community-based child care, as is recommended by international instruments on child care and researches on the issue. This change in approach is reflected in India’s National Policy for Children 2013, which has identified one of its key priorities as: “To secure the rights of children temporarily or permanently deprived of parental care, the State shall endeavour to ensure 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.”(Para 4.10).5

4 EPW, Vol. 56, Issue No. 16, 17 Apr, 2021, Tuhina Sharma, Alternative Care for Children: A Case for Foster Care

5 2017, Udayan Care, Standards of Care in Child Care Institutions

UNDERSTANDING ALTERNATIVE CARE FOR CHILDREN

What is care for children?

Children are most vulnerable when they lack a protective family environment, are left alone or unsupervised by a caring adult. It makes them easy victims for exploitation, sexual abuse, trafficking, forced labour and other forms of harmful practices. Some children for example those living without parental care, children in conflict with the law, and children affected by conflict can be more vulnerable to such violence. These children need special care and protection and thereby recognized by the Government as ‘children in need of care and protection’. Child care is protecting every right of children against social, psychological and emotional insecurity by preventing all forms of violence, exploitation, neglect and abuse against them. Violating children’s rights to be protected contributes to poor mental, physical, emotional and social development of children, and adversely affects children’s capacity for self-reliance and their roles and responsibilities as adults. The concept of child care recognizes three fundamental truths: Children require unique care and protection due to their development needs; Children have specific, fundamental child rights and Some children are more vulnerable and require more targeted focus to ensure that their child-specific rights are safe-guarded.

What is alternative care for children?

Alternative care is understood to be care for orphans and vulnerable children lacking the custody of their biological families and parents, within family-type settings or family settings in their own communities. It includes adoption, foster care, guardianship, kinship care, and other community-based provisions for children in need of care. One of the critical conditions when employing alternative care for children is forecasting the duration and permanency of placements that guarantee constancy, stability and a sense of belongingness. It also involves a course of action that includes long-term planning aiming at reconnecting the children with their biological families or to place them with adoptive families.

Alternative Care, for children separated from their families is poised strongly on the international child protection agenda. In a historic step, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) had resolved to focus on ‘Children without Parental Care’ in 2019 (UNGA Advocacy WG,2019). UN guidelines (Section II, General Principles and Perspectives) clearly mentions that ”where the child's own family is unable, even with appropriate support, to provide adequate care for the child, or abandons or relinquishes the child, the State is responsible for protecting the rights of the child and ensuring appropriate alternative care, with or through competent local authorities and duly authorized civil society organizations. It is the role of the State, through its competent authorities, to ensure the supervision of the safety, well-being

and development of any child placed in alternative care and the regular review of the appropriateness of the care arrangement provided”

Alternative care takes several forms, and includes formal and informal care as well as temporary and permanent care. Alternative care comprises the alternative supports in different forms that may help in the strengthening the family situation and thus prevent separation of the child from the family. Which form of support or care is most appropriate will vary from case to case and is determined in accordance with the best interest of the child. See below for a brief description on each type of care in the continuum. While some forms of alternative care in India are currently regarded as well established, such as institutional care, adoption, and informal kinship care, other forms of community based alternative care such as sponsorship , formal kinship care etc, need to be strengthened by government and nongovernment organisations to create a continuum of services that are capable of meeting the needs of the most vulnerable children and families.6

Formal Alternative Care: Adoption, foster care, institutional care and after care

• Directed by competent governmental bodies, such as Child Welfare Committee

• Governed by processes outlined by law/ with standardizations

• Potential to be financially supported by the State

• Paired with monitoring and evaluation processes

• May be in a family-based setting or a residential setting (public or private)

Informal Alternative Care: Community based care like sponsorship, Kinship care

• The care is not ordered by any competent authority

• Typically, these arrangements are with extended family, friends, or close community members

• Very less or no financial support

• Not regulated

• Difficult to obtain data on numbers and the care situation of children in these arrangements

COMMUNITY BASED CARE MECHANISMS AS ALTERNATIVE CARE

Why Community Based Alternative Care?

Researches show that keeping alternative care interventions in family like settings within children’s own communities (in cases children cannot be kept within the families) allows children to maintain ties with natural support networks such as, relatives, friends and

6 Terre des hommes Foundation, FAQs on Alternative Care for- Children in India: An overview of concept & processes

neighbours, and minimizes disruption to their education, cultural and social life. Keeping children within the community, ideally as close as possible to their families or relatives will help children to stay in touch with their families, and facilitates potential reintegration.7

In the absence of well-developed care and child protection systems in many countries, community-based mechanisms can also play a key role supporting children and caretakers in alternative care situations. Child Protection Committees, faith-based organizations, civil society groups, volunteer associations and other community-based groups can provide financial or practical support through schemes that help to fund children’s education or health costs, link them to support services or social assistance schemes, and provide mentorship and family counselling. Home visits and caretaker support groups can also play a valuable role, while awareness raising efforts to promote children’s rights (particularly if supported by community and religious leaders), can help to reduce discrimination against girls and boys in alternative care arrangements – particularly those with disabilities or from minority groups. As long as they are not over-burdened or given responsibilities beyond their competence, community-based groups can provide vital support to children in alternative care situations.

Community-based forms of care constitute the preferred alternative to an institutional culture of care. It is actually the care in community level as a form of service provision that allows the child to grow up in a family environment within the community. Examples from around the world demonstrate that there are many ways children without adequate family care can be supported within their own communities. This includes support services in both formal and informal arrangements such as, foster care, kinship care, domestic adoption, guardianship, supervised independent living, child-headed households and small group homes. The support services include mainstream services available and accessible to all, as well as specialised support targeted to the individual child and family. These communities based alternative care mechanisms can be supported through a range of formal measures including social protection schemes (e.g., child sensitive cash transfers), family strengthening services, community-based rehabilitation services for children with disabilities, respite care, training for caregivers, and policies that support families in alternative care-taking roles. Increasing access to free education and health services, and establishing social assistance programmes to reduce poverty, can also help the poorest caregivers to support children within the community.

In India, the concept of promoting family-based care mechanisms through government systems has not been fully realised, owing to lack of synergy between resource allocation and existing government programmes, policies and plans of action for child protection. The National Plan of Action for Children (Ministry of Woman and Child Development, 2016) acknowledges the importance of strengthening communities and families to support children and to ensure their overall survival, well-being, protection and development. In spite of

7 https://bettercarenetwork.org/library/the-continuum-of-care/community-based-care-mechanisms

multiple policies, plan of action for children supported by legal provisions to safeguard the best interest of children in India, the fundamental programming to uphold the basic rights of children, especially those in vulnerable circumstances, is yet to be implemented at the community level (UNICEF, 2016). Although it is usually accepted that preventive response mechanisms are crucial for reducing the vulnerability of children who are outside the family safety net, there is a lack of clarity on the most effective preventive response strategy for early identification of the immediate need of the child (Boothby et al., 2012). A paradigm shifts from institutionalization to strengthening preventive system for child protection would mean optimum and effective reallocation of resources towards building community-based preventive systems, incubating the component of family-based alternative care mechanisms.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This section of the report focuses on the background and objectives of undertaking the study as well as describes the research methods used, outlines the participants, information collected and interpretation of collected information. This section also mentions the ethical considerations of the research and few limitations faced by the researches while conducting the study and writing the report.

The Rationale and Initiation of the Research

Rainbow Homes Programme has been exclusively working on the issues of Street Children through implementing a comprehensive residential care programme for the street children. Over the past 18 years, it has been successfully extended direct care to more than 5000 number of children with the partnership of Government, local civil society organizations, corporates and likeminded individuals and groups. One of the key objectives of Rainbow Homes programme is to slowly reintegrate children with the families after a thorough assessment of each family’s economic and social condition to assess whether families are ready to take care of the children with some additional supports from Rainbow.

Juvenile Justice Act 2000 and its subsequent Amendments in 2006, 2015 and the State Model rules framed under the act at different point of times reiterated the concepts of Sponsorship and Foster Care assistance as the most cost effective and efficient in preventing child destitution through holistic child protection. Model rules and amended Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 shifted its focus of interventions from an over reliance on institutionalization of children and move towards more family and community–based alternatives for care mentioning that Institutionalization should be used as ‘a measure of last resort after all other options have been explored’.

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), in its Directives to 8 Southern State recommended that children under the care of CCIs, who have families are to be reintegrated with their parents whereas children without parents are to be sent to the Foster Care Institutions or Sponsorships. The statutory bodies like DCPU and CWC pressurized Rainbow Homes program to rationalize to reduce the number of children in the residential homes, as per the JJ norms. However, after the guidance issued by NCPCR recommending children’s restoration with families and bringing CCI children into sponsorship in cases families are not capable of taking care of them, the Supreme Court of India suggested to go for caseto-case basis by ensuring proper assessment of each child’s family before restoration.

In tune with the permissions given by DCPU, RHP initiated the effort of reducing the number of children in the institutional care (i.e. Rainbow Homes & Sneh Ghars). The children taken out from the homes are either i) reintegrated with the parents after 2-3 rounds of discussion with parents to assess the situation of security of the girls in the community as well as parent attitudes towards children’s education and protection needs; or ii) sent to the residential hostels run by the governments or by the NGOs/Private institutions. However, during family reintegration of children, Rainbow Homes Program found that the parents despite having improved emotional bonding with children, shelter security & preparedness to receive the child, few families still need financial supports whereas few children still need long term care from Rainbow Homes. Hence, Rainbow Homes Program started initiating alternative care models such as. I) Sponsorship support and ii) Foster Care support for the children under its care who needs family supports as well as long terms supports.

Research methods

This study is based on the methods of qualitative research, one of the main methods used in social science. Qualitative research methods are based on studying and interpreting the social aspect of the world using interviews and observation (Esterberg, 2002). Though literature review and interviews or FGDs with some of the key informants from different NGO representatives in different cities practicing Sponsorship, this study entailed to find out answers to some of the questions including but not limited to the following,

1) What are the International and National Legal and Policy Instruments such as existing Acts, Rules, policies and guidelines and sponsorship formats?

2) What are the existing types of Sponsorship program carried out by state governments as part of ICPS and practising NGOs?

3) What is the Concept, different Interventions, procedure and mechanisms for children under Sponsorships?

4) What are the criteria followed by sample NGOs for child selections for sponsorship programs, the need assessment, duration of sponsorships etc.?

5) What are the Rights and responsibilities of care givers, families, communities and what measures are taken for follow ups, monitoring, review and terminations?

6) What are the good practices and practical challenges faced by selected sample organizations practising sponsorship program?

7) What are components wise budget allocations for sponsorship/kinship and foster care programs

8) What are some opinions and suggestions provided by the sample organizations for designing community-based care models for children?

Objectives

Keeping in mind the need with regards to reaching the communities and implementing communitybasedcaremodel,themajorobjectivesofthisstudyareto;

- Understand the background and concept of Sponsorship program as conceived by government or practising civil society organizations

- Identify and document different international and national guidelines, acts, rules, policies and schemes supporting alternative care in general and Sponsorship program for community children in particular.

- Understand different types of Sponsorship program and document the best practices as narrated by sample organizations interviewed for this study.

- Understand the interventions under sponsorship and different aspects implementing the program in community starting from identifying and mobilizing the community till reaching the targeted beneficiary, that is children and families.

- Document role of the Government, organizations and team for successful implementation and sustainability of the program

- Ascertain budgetary line items associated with different interventions to implement community sponsorship program.

- Recommend measures for interventions that will bring about qualitative improvement and effectiveness of the implementation of any community based care model, including Sponsorships.

Tools employed for Collection of Information

India; ii) Individual Interactions or FGDs with NGO representatives in different cities practicing Sponsorship programs to understand their processes and challenges, iii) Interaction with government officials to know the status and processes of implementation of sponsorship component under ICPS. The study also, very briefly documents Rainbow Home Program’s efforts and mechanism in implementing the community-based care program with children under the care of RHP.

Literature review

On the first hand, an extensive review of literature was undertaken to collect relevant information on aspects like, concept, importance and purpose of Community Based Alternative Care to disadvantaged children, the legal instruments, the functioning of Community Based Care, basic required interventions benefitting the communities, importance and strategies of community collaborations, initial implementation challenges, etc. For this purpose, various international and national research studies, journals, civil society reports on community-based care models were studied. Literature review has been a crucial exercise to identify the sample NGOs for the present study who are implementing community-based care and sponsorship program in different parts of India as well as to know about INGOs in different countries.

Key informant’s interviews

Apart from literature reviews, collecting information from key informants in selected sample organizations in the field of child care was the important component of data collection in this study. The data collection process included administration of in-depth semi-structured interviews and open-ended interviews with the key informants such as the head of the organizations and other staff responsible for direct implementations. The interviews were taken with prior information about the study and taking due consent from the key informants for the discussion. A mixed of semi-structured and open-ended questionnaire was used to conduct these interviews to keep the discussion focused about their own practice models as well as to elicit a candid response from these professionals regarding their opinion on different aspects of implementing Community based alternative care such as sponsorship program for disadvantaged children. The interviews varied in length; the shortest was 30 minutes and the longest 110 minutes Interviews with sample organizations were administered in online mode through Zoom calls pertaining to the pandemic situation prevailed at the time of study, whereas individual discussion with government officials such as DCPU or WCD happened at their respective offices to know about their processes and mechanism to implement Sponsorship component under ICPS. These interviews were audio taped and later transcribed verbatim, which formed the database for this study.

The important point to note is that the qualitative information received through these IDIs with practitioners and officials has been taken as being narrated by them and the study did not attempt to consolidate qualitative information narrated by the key informants. Instead,

the interventions/practices are documented to make this report as a guide to RHP for future implementation of the Sponsorship Program

Sample

We believe that comprehensive documentation of practices of alternative care models in the sample cities and understanding good practices and experiences of different organizations implementing Sponsorship Program in India as well as across the globe will be useful in effectively planning for the alternative care models for children under care of Rainbow Homes Programs. In this regard, key informant organizations were contacted for Individual interactions or Focused group discussions with semi-structured questionnaire to collect information and understand the informant’s reflections on how to start the implementation of community-based care and what interventions should help in attaining self-sustainability in alternative community-based care for children. The organizations who were part of the intense discussions are as follows

- World Vision Kolkata

- Hope Foundation Kolkata

- Baliga Trust Delhi

- Child Fund, Bangalore

- Plan India Patna

- Community Aid and Sponsorship Programme (CASPINDIA), Pune

- India Sponsorship Committee (ISC), Pune

Through informal talks to the experts on community works from Jay Prakash Institute for Social Change, Kolkata, Humana People to People India’s (HPPI), Delhi the study gained knowledge about the community interventions that works well.

Ethical Considerations

Alike all other research studies undertaken by Rainbow Homes Program, this study also followed the organization’s ethical protocols to maintain confidentiality of the stakeholders involved in the study. Information from the representatives of selected sample organizations studied for this research were collected after clearly explaining the objectives and taking due consent about usage of information provided by them. A part of ethical protocol, it was also explained to the key informants that there was no string attached and that it is perfectly understandable if there are some questions they do not want to answer. While talking to the government officials to know about sponsorship status in the states, consent was taken mentioning purpose of the study and Rainbow’s initiative of slowly shifting from institutionalizations to community based care model.

Limitations of the Research

Inability to visit to implementing areas: Responses and opinions that came from key informants have been documented as they were narrated. There was little scope at the time of conceiving this study, owing to the pandemic situation. to gain practical insights by visiting some of the sample organizations and have face to face interactions.

Lack of available documentation: An important limitation has been the absence of documentation on practical interventions publicly made available, such as community mobilization strategies or interventions for community-based care, implementation strategies etc. Most of the organizations selected for the virtual interactions found to be sceptical about the idea of conducting IDIs in online modes. In most of organization, sponsorship programs are very organization-specific and need based. Even though there might be documentations on the process/mechanisms/strategies to effectively implement community-based care models by the organizations, they might be copyrighted and were not to be shared with other organizations. Hence, to collect information, the researchers had to rely on secondary resources as well as the information narrated by the selected organization during interviews.

Budgets allocated and needed could not be estimated adequately: Government’s budget for implementing Sponsorship program were same as mentioned in financial guideline in ICPS but in the absence guideline from department on its different component, understanding component wise allocation on sponsorship could not be possible. Given the provisions, one can broadly deduce that there is a huge gap in allocation and the actual requirement. However, in this research, calculating costs associated with different components of Sponsorship program to adequately provide for all components has not been done. Also, the sample organizations were found to be sceptical in sharing budget line item and estimated cost for different components of Sponsorship program which left us with limited clue in presenting a model budget for implementing sponsorship.

02

LEGISLATIVE AND POLICY FRAMEWORK

FOR ALTERNATIVE CARE

The policies on alternative care of children in India by Indian as well as global agencies are covered in this chapter. It also explains the different frameworks for alternative care of vulnerable children provisioned under concerned acts formalised over time. Whilst this study entails to understand different programmes and resource components that may be promoted to keep children with either their own family with care and support to satisfy the rights of children overall development, it is important to know different legal and policy instruments that talks for alternative communitybased care for vulnerable children. Therefore it documents National and International Legal and Policy Instruments such as existing Acts, Rules, policies and Guidelines on community based alternative care especially focusing on Sponsorship program.

INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR ALTERNATIVE CARE

The Constitution of India guarantees Fundamental Rights to all children in the country and empowers the State to make special provisions for children. The Directive Principles of State Policy specifically guide the State in securing the tender age of children from abuse and ensuring that children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner in conditions of freedom and dignity.8 The State is responsible for ensuring that childhood is protected from exploitation and moral and material abandonment. Declaring its children as the nation’s “supremely important asset” in the National Policy for Children, 1974, the Government of India reiterated its commitment to secure the rights of its children by ratifying related international conventions and treaties including the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its Covenants, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its two Optional Protocols, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect of Inter-Country Adoption etc.

International Frameworks for child protection and alternative care guidelines, with focus on Sponsorship

The international community has increasingly recognized the need to delineate child-specific rights. In recent years, more thought has been given to the specific vulnerabilities and needs of children outside of the care and protection of their biological families, or who are at risk of being so.

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (abbreviated as the CRC or UNCRC)9

The UNCRC provides an inclusive structure for policy and programme development to promote and protect the rights of children. Articles 9, 18, 19, 20 and 21 specifically focus on alternative care and the need for gate keeping. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) suggested that the holistic development of a child depends on their experience of growing up in a family milieu which is ideally an environment of contentment, affection and understanding. It advocates that a child should not be separated from their parents against their will. If the separation is necessary, it should be done in the best interests of the child.

Article 18 of UNCRC states that it is the prime responsibility of the parents to take care of their children and Article 20 (Children deprived of family environment) states that children

8 Third/fourth report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (2012), ch. 4, para. 40

9 https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child

who cannot be looked after by their own family have a right to special care and must be looked after properly, by people who respect their ethnic group, religion, culture and language.

It applies to both temporary and permanent needs for alternative care, to situations where no extended family care is available, and to all possible reasons as to the causes for separation (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Rädda Barnen (Society: Sweden), 2007, pp. 526–527).

Article 20 specifically says that

1) A child temporarily or permanently deprived of his or her family environment, or in whose own best interests cannot be allowed to remain in that environment, shall be entitled to special protection and assistance provided by the State.

2) States Parties shall in accordance with their national laws ensure alternative care for such a child.

3) Such care could include, inter alia, foster placement, Kafalah of Islamic law, adoption or if necessary, placement in suitable institutions for the care of children. When considering solutions, due regard shall be paid to the desirability of continuity in a child's upbringing and to the child's ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background.

Accordingly, States Parties’ must establish a legal and administrative framework with competent bodies and qualified professionals for alternative care systems for such times when it is necessary for the child’s best interest to be placed in an alternative care setting than their family environment. Fundamentals of alternative care systems are clearly outlined in the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, which explicitly demand from the States Parties that all alternative care options should be supported with clear legislative and policy framework and adequate financial conditions as enshrined in Articles 3 and 4 of the Convention, as a part of the ‘special care and protection.’

The United Nations Guideline on the Alternative Care of Children, 2009

Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 November 2009, in connection with the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. On family-based care the guidelines say that “while recognizing that residential care facilities and family-based care complement each other in meeting the needs of children, where large residential care facilities (institutions) remain, alternatives should be developed in the context of an overall deinstitutionalization strategy, with precise goals and objectives, which will allow for their progressive elimination” (Paragraph 23).

The guideline encourages efforts to maintain children with their families, where possible. When this is not in the child’s best interest, the State is responsible for protecting the rights

of the child and ensuring appropriate alternative care: kinship care, foster care, other forms of family-based or family-like care, residential care or supervised independent living arrangements. Recourse to alternative care should only be made when necessary, and in forms appropriate to promote the child’s wellbeing, aiming to find a stable and safe long-term response, including, where possible, reuniting the child with his or her family. The guideline seeks in particular,

a) To support efforts to keep children in, or return them to, the care of their family or, failing this, to find another appropriate and permanent solution, including adoption and Kafala of Islamic law;

b) To ensure that, while such permanent solutions are being sought, or in cases where they are not possible or are not in the best interests of the child, the most suitable forms of alternative care are identified and provided, under conditions that promotes the child’s full and harmonious development;

c) To assist and encourage Governments to better implement their responsibilities and obligations in these respects, bearing in mind the economic, social and cultural conditions prevailing in each State; and

d) To guide policies, decisions, and activities of all concerned with social protection and child welfare in both the public and the private sectors, including civil society.

National policies, laws, and rules

The Constitution of India recognizes the rights of children by including several articles dealing with their liberty, livelihood and development of childhood, non-discrimination in educational spheres, compulsory and free education, prohibition on employment. Article 39 f in the Constitution of India mentions that the State shall, in particular, directs its policy towards securing that “children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity and that childhood and youth are protected against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment ”

Juvenile Justice (care and protection of children) Act 2015 and Juvenile Justice Rules, 2016

The Government of India has provided a strong legal and schematic framework for child protection through the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJ Act 2015) and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Model Rules, 2016. Model rules and amended Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 shifted its focus of interventions from an over reliance on institutionalization of children and move towards more family and community–based alternatives for care mentioning that Institutionalization should be used as ‘a measure of last resort after all other options have been explored’. Hence, a more prominent focus has been to provide for the rehabilitation and

reintegration of children through non-institutional arrangements like sponsorship, fostercare, adoption and after-care.

JJ Act, Section 4510:

Section 45 mentions purpose of undertaking various programmes of sponsorship of children, such as individual to individual sponsorship, group sponsorship or community sponsorship under sub-section (1) of section 45 and duration of sponsorship under sub-section (3) of section 45

- The State Government shall make rules for the purpose of undertaking various programmes of sponsorship of children, such as individual to individual sponsorship, group sponsorship or community sponsorship.

- The criteria for sponsorship shall include,

o where mother is a widow or divorced or abandoned by family;

o where children are orphan and are living with the extended family;

o where parents are victims of life-threatening disease;

o where parents are incapacitated due to accident and unable to take care of children both financially and physically.

- The duration of sponsorship can be maximum three years or up to 18 years, whichever is earlier – other than exceptional circumstances.

- The sponsorship programme may provide supplementary support to families, to Children’s Homes and to special homes to meet medical, nutritional, educational and other needs of the children, with a view to improving their quality of life.

Model Rules, 2016, Section 2411: Rule 24 talks about alternative care through sponsorship program that directs the states,

- To prepare sponsorship programmes, which may include: (i) individual to individual sponsorship; (ii) group sponsorship; (iii) community sponsorship; (iv) support to families through sponsorship; and (v) support to Children Homes and Special Homes

10 The Juvenile Justice (Care And Protection Of Children) Act, 2015, Accessed from http://cara.nic.in/PDF/JJ%20act%202015.pdf

11 Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Model Rules, 2016; Accessed from http://cara.nic.in/PDF/english%20model%20rule.pdf

- To be implemented by the District Child Protection Unit which shall provide a panel of persons or families or organisations interested in sponsoring a child.

- To list the panel of sponsors according to the area of interest such as education, medical support, nutrition, vocational training etc., and the nature of sponsorship.

- DCPU to forward the panel to the Board or the Committee or the Children’s Court.

- Verifying availability of the sponsor to support such child and pass by the Board or the Committee or the Children’s Court for placement of the child under sponsorship.

- DCPU, in case of individual sponsorship, to open an account in the name of the child to be operated preferably by the mother and to transfer the money directly from the bank account of DCPU to the bank account of the child.

- The duration of the sponsorship shall not ordinarily exceed three years.

National Charter for Children, 2003 and National Policy of Children 2013

On August 22, 1974, the "National Child Policy" was passed for the first time, stipulating that the state shall provide adequate services for the comprehensive physical and mental development of children before and after birth and during their growth stages. The measures to be taken include: comprehensive health care programs, supplementary nutrition for mothers and children, free compulsory education for all children under 14 years of age, promotion of physical education and recreational activities, and special attention to children in disadvantaged sectors, such as SC and ST, To prevent the exploitation of children, subsequently, the Indian government passed the National Children’s Charter in 2003, which was formulated after receiving opinions/comments and suggestions from the Washington State/State Government, relevant ministries and departments, and the National Charter. It is a letter of intent based on the government agenda.12

Key priority for child protection in NPC 2013:

“To secure the rights of children temporarily or permanently deprived of parental care, the State shall endeavour to ensure 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 National Charter for Children, 2003 adopted on 9th February 2004, underlined the intent to secure for every child its inherent right to be a child and enjoy a healthy and happy childhood, to address the root causes that negate the healthy growth and development of

12 Extract from the Gazatte of India – Part I, dated 11 May 2011, MINISTRY OF WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT (June 9, 2021, 11:46 AM), https://wcd.nic.in/sites/default/files/npcenglish08072013_0.pdf

children, and to awaken the conscience of the community in the wider societal context to protect children from all forms of abuse, while strengthening the family, society and the nation. To affirm the Government’s commitment to the rights-based approach in addressing the continuing and emerging challenges in the situation of children, the Government of India adopted resolution on the National Policy for Children, 2013, that recognizes every person below the age of eighteen years as a child and covers all children within the territory and jurisdiction of the country. The policy recognizing the necessary multi-sectoral and multidimensional approach to secure rights of the children, delineates the need for governmentcivil society partnership and the unique role of NGOs to work in a synergy to provide optimum services and responses to children.

Integrated child protection scheme and Sponsorship provisions under ICPS

The core objective of Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) is to contribute to the improvements and the well-being of children in difficult circumstances as well as to reduce vulnerabilities to situations and actions that lead to abuse, neglect, exploitation, abandonment and separation of children through partnerships between government and civil society. The guidelines for Sponsorship for children under ICPS, formulated by Ministry of Women and Child Development, Govt of India are based on the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act 2000 Amendment 2006, Integrated Child Protection Scheme, UN Guidelines for Alternative Care 2009 and on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

ICPS supports the creation of a Sponsorship and Foster Care Fund that are placed at the disposal of the DCPU. An amount of Rs.10 Lakhs per district per annum are provided under the scheme. The State Governments are encouraged to give additional grants to the State Child Protection Society (SCPS) under Sponsorship and Foster Care Fund and may initiate steps to proactively identify children needing protection with support of organisations working in this sector. As per the scheme component, to review and sanction sponsorship (for preventive settings only) and foster care fund, every district has Sponsorship and Foster Care Approval Committee (SFCAC) consisting of the DCPO, the Protection Officer (Non institutional care), one of the CWC member or the Chairperson, one representative of State Adoption Agency and one representative from Voluntary Organization working in child protection sector. (Chapter 3 has documented the details of the Sponsorship components under ICPS scheme).

SPONSORSHIP UNDER ICPS: AN OVERVIEW

This chapter provides an overview of the alternative/noninstitutional based care such as, Sponsorship component envisaged in Juvenile Justice Act 2015 and Integrated Child Protection Scheme, the centrally sponsored umbrella scheme implemented by Government of India that aimed at building a protective environment for children in difficult circumstances. The scheme has formulated guidelines towards implementing non institutional care including sponsorship that states are following. Apart from central guidelines few states have come up with their own guidelines by adding some components over central guidelines based on stat specific needs. The section below describes the overview of the central guidelines as well as additions in the guidelines formulated by few states.

03

Child sponsorship is a child focused programme evolved over period of time under the humanitarian voluntary organizations as a formal organized service towards facilitating the poor and marginalised children to realize their rights for survival, development, protection and participation. Child sponsorship programme is providing timely help to a needy child in a family setting, for a temporary period to enable him to grow as an independent self-sufficient citizens and it is designed to meet the needs of the children in their own homes. By transfer resources from sponsors in wealthy countries to children in developing counties, child sponsorship programme provide help to children the access to health care, nutritious meals, tuition and school uniforms (Paul Glewwe P. H., 2014).

Peltier (2002) explains that child sponsorship programme is required long lasting commitment than all other charitable activities. It encourages a person to sponsor a child under the child becomes self-sufficient or self-supporting. Because of the monitoring support of the sponsor, the child develops its cognitive capacity, physical health, security and emotional wellbeing over a period of years or for decades. A study conducted by Plan International (2008) on the development impact of child sponsorship shows that there is a positive effect of the sponsorship relationship which is motivating them in their education, school attendance and personal development. Children were identified greater awareness of other countries and cultures, heightened writing and communication skills. As per the parents’ opinion, the positive emotional effects from their relationships with sponsors.

The national flagship scheme-Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS)13 is designed to be implemented at all levels- central, regional, state, and district with specific objectives that includes,

- Greater country wide awareness on child protection and child vulnerabilities

- The enhancement of capacities of child protection service delivery persons and organizations

- The expansion and dissemination of information and data for child protection services

- Increased coordination between government and nongovernmental institutions through governmental-civil partnerships

- Increased support given to the most vulnerable families, on the basis that the family is the most important societal unit and the most natural environment for the development of the child

- Greater alignment with the UNCRC in using institutionalization of children as a last resort for children in need of care and protection.

As part of the last objective, ICPS envisaged for the rehabilitation and reintegration of children through family-based non-institutional care such as, Sponsorship, Foster care, adoption and after care. Sponsorship is the provision of supplementary/alternative care support to families to meet medical, nutritional, educational and other needs of their children with a view to

13 http://cara.nic.in/pdf/revised%20icps%20scheme.pdf

improving their quality of life. It is a conditional assistance to enable children who were at risk from being removed from school and sent for work, to continue their education. Families facing deep poverty or other constraints may feel that placing a child in an institution will give their child opportunities that they cannot provide. Sponsorship can be a vital resource for keeping vulnerable families together, and empowering parents to care for their own children.

OBJECTIVES

• Support the families to continue the education of a child until s/he completes the education till completion of class 12

• Ensure the comprehensive development of the child.

• Ensure that the child has employability skills through various vocational trainings.

• Continue the support beyond schooling based on merit as well as interest of the child.

• Some organization also extend the sponsorship to the communities of children through ‘Child Centric Community Development’ and by this the child is benefited directly or indirectly.

KEY CONCEPT

i) Prevents child destitution and offers holistic child protection;

ii) Provides conditional assistance to ensure that the child continues his/her education;

iii) Supports and supervises financial assistance to families and group foster homes;

iv) Offers child care within the family setting;

v) Preserves families and encourages parents to fulfil their responsibilities;

This section of the report is based on the guidelines on Sponsorship program as formulated under the ICPS. From the interviews with government officials and NGO representatives, it was clear that most of the states that have sponsorship and foster care component under ICPS, are implementing it as per ICPS guidelines though there is no document available on public domain, except in few states about the processes and beneficiaries. Interview with officials in SCPS in West Bengal and the DCPO of Kolkata district revealed that Government of West Bengal have uploaded the Sponsorship guideline in the website which is mostly the same as the guideline for sponsorship accessed from CARA. States like NCT of Delhi, Kerala too have their sponsorship guidelines updated in the department’s official websites. All the states have modified the guidelines a bit on the basis of state-specific needs in aspects like eligibility criteria of children, impact assessment indicators, conditions to terminate the sponsorship support etc. The overall aspects of sponsorship are presented below in the easy to-understand style which can be used by the stakeholders as ready reference to know details about the component

TYPES OF SPONSORSHIP

1) Preventive: Alternative supplementary supports to Children placed into institutions by families as a poverty coping measure to reunite them with their families. The DCPU with the help of its social workers, outreach workers, volunteers as well as the Village Child Protection Committees shall identify vulnerable families or children for sponsorship support.

“West Bengal has been equipped to arrange for 943 child sponsorship in the state. An average quota of 40 sponsorships has been marked for each of the districts”

- WB Minister for Women & Child Development

“There have been cases when parents have refused to accept their child even after he/she is rehabilitated after staying at child care homes. This financial assistance is gradually yielding fruits and children are getting the opportunity to live with their own parents”

- Officials, Child Rights & Trafficking Dept, WB

2) Rehabilitative: Restoring children from institutions to the families providing alternative supplementary assistance to families living in extreme conditions of deprivation or exploitation (such as, trafficked children, child labour, children with special need, victims of sexual offense etc.) to enable the child to remain in his/her family. Child care institutions can approach the CWC/JJB to recommend a suitable case to DCPU for rehabilitation through the sponsorship fund.

DURATION AND COVERAGE

The duration of the sponsorship support shall be decided on a case-to-case basis by the Sponsorship and Foster Care Approval Committee, and shall not exceed three years except under exceptional circumstances. As per JJ Act, the duration of sponsorship can be maximum three years or up to 18 years, whichever is earlier – other than exceptional circumstances. However, in exceptional cases the SFCAC may decide to extend the period of support beyond three years if, during review it finds that the child is doing well within the family and continued support is essential for the wellbeing of the child. The sponsorship support shall be for a maximum of two children per family.

CHILDREN ELIGIBLE FOR SPONSORSHIP

(i) Children, of the age of 0 to18 years

(ii) Children staying in child care institutions for more than six months continuously, who can be restored to their families, with financial support.

(iii) The total income of the family should not be more than Rs. 24,000 per year for Rural areas, Rs 36,000 per annum for Metro cities and Rs 30,000 per annum for Other Cities.

(iv) Priority shall be given to:

a. Children of a single mother/widow

b. Children of Leprosy patients/HIV infected parent

c. Children whose parent/bread earner is in jail

In West Bengal, priority has been given to provide Sponsorship supports to other groups such as,

- Physically disabled children who dropout from school due to financial reasons

- Children whose parent/bread earner is in a correctional home

- (Children of) Parents suffering from chronic ailments and from terminal diseases.

- (Children of) Parents who are disabled and incapacitated to work.

- Vulnerable children and the families from the community who are the victims of child marriage, child trafficking and child labour etc.

PROCESS OF SELECTION AND APPROVALS

• Identification and selection: The CCI need to prepare Individual Care Plans after home visits and detailed interviews of the parents and the child to capture nature of difficulties faced by the biological family and Child Welfare Officer (in case of CNCP) identify the children needing sponsorship supports.

• Preparation of list of children to bring under Sponsorship support: Selected children’s Individual child care plans, educational status and educational performance, health status, availability of parents, socio-economic status of parents are to be submitted to the Protection Officer (Institutional Care) in the DCPS for sponsorship recommendation.

• Home Study Report: After receiving CCI’s recommendation, the Protection Officer (Institutional Care) prepare list of all the children whose, own and family situation indicate that the child would benefit from restoration to the family with financial support and direct concerned CCI to prepare Home Study Reports (refer Annexure 1) for all children in prescribed format. In case of children whose family is residing in another district, the PO (IC) will request the DCPS of that district to conduct the Home study through a suitable agency. Suitable cases are then recommended to Protection OfficerNon Institutional Care PO (NIC).

• Scrutiny by Protection Officer-Non-Institutional Care PO (NIC): The PO (NIC) scrutinize the documents for eligibility of children recommended by PO(IC) for deinstitutionalization and submit the CWC order of placing children in CCI, Individual

care plan of the child and Home Study Report to Sponsorship and Foster Care Approval Committee (SFCAC) for final approval.

• Approval: Sponsorship and Foster Care Approval Committee review each recommendation and approve family based sponsorship support on a case to case basis depending on the family circumstances, age of the child etc. for a period not exceeding three years.

FINANCIAL NORMS AND PROCESS OF RELEASE OF FUNDS

• The Sponsorship and Foster Care Approval Committee shall have the authority to seek relevant documents, including a home and school enquiry report from a Social Worker or Outreach Worker of the DCPU/SAA, to determine need for Sponsorship assistance

• The quantum of sponsorship will be of Rs.2000 per month per child and would be subject to further guidelines to be laid down by MWCD. The fund sharing ratio between central and state Government being 60:40 as per ICPS budget.

• The DCPO will open a Bank/Post Office account in the name of the child, to be operated by the child’s guardian, preferably by the Mother.

• There will be no cash transfer. The money will be directly transferred from the DCPU’s bank account to the Bank/Post Office

• Officials in West Bengal mentioned that, in case of Migration happens to another state in the sponsorship duration, the sponsorship gets transferred to the concerned DCPU/CWC o the migrated state.

• Delhi mandated in the guideline that first instalment of such financial assistance has to be released within 7 working days of receipt of the order of the CWC/ JJB and thereafter payment of sponsorship support is to be released by 10th day of every month. Also the release of payment post sixth month of the period of sponsorship shall be considered only after the physical verification and review of progress of the child by the DCPU.

ROLE OF DCPU/DCPO IN PLACEMENT IN FAMILIES FOR DEINSTITUTIONALISED CHILDREN

- The DCPU through the PO (NIC) or a Social Worker, will guide the family and the child regarding the support that they would be given and the responsibilities they would be required to fulfil under the sponsorship programme.

- The DCPO will ensure that prior to reintegration with families, the child and the family are counselled so the child and family can adapt to the new situation.

- The DCPO will arrange for escorting the child from the CCI to the family’s residence

- The DCPO will provide assistance to the family in enrolment of the child in a school/Anganwadi/ vocational course centre near his/her place of residence, through SSA.

- The DCPO will regularly maintain communication with the School/Anganwadi/ Vocational course centre to ascertain progress of the child.

- The DCPO will conduct home visits once in two months and make remedial intervention to improve the overall wellbeing of the child and the family

- The DCPO will ensure that all facilities including uniforms, books etc. are provided to the child as under the rules of SSA.

- The DCPU will ensure the parents role by signing an undertaking with the parents on commencement of the sponsorship.

- The DCPU will ensure that families receiving sponsorship grant shall have access to counselling and guidance support at any point of time after placement for child’s holistic development and family’s capacity building.

- The DCPU will establish linkages with other Departments including Rural Development Agency, Panchayati Raj Agency, Tribal Development Agency etc., to enable the child and the families to avail of benefits to which they are entitled through convergence and even link families of selected children through government schemes in getting loans, housings etc.

ROLE OF CWC/BOARD

Individual Sponsorships under ICPS in Delhi – Role of DCPO

✓ DCPU needs to share the list with the Committee and the Board to facilitate direct linkages

✓ The support can be towards education, medical care, skill development, stationary, educational gadgets (Laptops, computer desktop, internet), boarding, transportation, tuition etc.

✓ The nature of assistance would be based on needs assessment and recommendations made by the CWC or JJB

✓ The duration varies on case-to-case basis initially for up to six months, extendable to the period not exceeding 3 years or till the child attains the age of 18 years whichever is earlier

✓ DCPO can present any specific case before the Committee/ requiring no-monitory support to get recommendation/ orders for providing assistance in kind incurring expenditure as per the resources available arranged or as per the sponsors stated support.

✓ DCPU needs to maintain a panel of Individuals and organisations willing to sponsor a child or group of children

- CWC/Board examines the Individual Care Plan of the child, Home Study report of the family and approval of SFCAC submitted by the PO (NIC), and satisfy itself regarding the suitability for restoration with family with sponsorship support.

- CWC ensures that the selected child for sponsorship support gets admission into school before the placement order is passed.

- CWC can interview the child to take his/her consent.

- JJB/CWC makes an order in prescribed format given in the J. J. Rules [Form XVIII Rule 37 (5)], for support to the child through sponsorship and send a copy to DCPS for appropriate action.

COMMITMENTS FROM PARENTS

• To sign an undertaking that they would take care of all the needs of the child. (Refer Annexure 2)

• To respond to the sponsorship team during phone calls.

• To promptly communicate if there is any emergency related to the child of family

• To encourage the child to study and ensure that child continues education (with at least 75% attendance) without break in study for temporary employment or small jobs.

• To be committed to child completing education not being influenced by any social pressure to get the child married.

• To provide due health care, including timely immunization and ensure that the child receives age appropriate nutrition.

• To share about any change in their financial condition immediately.

• To communicate information about any aid that the child may receive from any other agency/ individual.

• To inform the social mobilizer about migration or movement from the area of sponsorship.

MONITORING AND TRACKING CHILDREN UNDER SPONSORSHIP

- The Protection Officer (Non-Institutional Care) maintains individual case files of each child and draw up a clear care plan after discussion with the child and the parents

- The PO (NIC) make quarterly home and school/anganwadi visits, obtain attendance certificates and note child’s health status, family environment etc.

- Annual review undertaken by Sponsorship and Foster Care Approval Committee (SFCAC) to review child’s progress, overall wellbeing before approving for continued sponsorship support. If the sponsorship is required for more than three years, State Child Protection Society (SCPS), under ICPS review on case basis to ensure that the child is progressing well and that all efforts have been made to strengthen the family.

DOCUMENTATION AND REPORTING

The DCPS maintains three types of records such as, Intake registers to keep details of all the children referred for sponsorship assistance; Master register of children covered under the

family-based sponsorship program and Annual register of children covered under the familybased sponsorship program. The registers contains the placement details of the child, parental status, child’s educational details and progress, disbursement details of sponsorship grants, termination details (if any), minutes of meeting of DPC with SFCAC and each child’s individual file including individual care plan, home study report, CWC order for placement in CCI, visit details to sponsored child’s family/school, details of child’s developmental milestones, child’s progress at school, and change in family environment etc.

The PO of the DCPS prepare i) quarterly reports of each child and submit to the Sponsorship and Foster Care Approval Committee (SFCAC) every quarter for review; and ii) annual report to submit to District Child Protection Committee (DCPC) and the State Child Protection Committee (SCPC) for review in order to ascertain the child’s progress and the family’s efforts at meeting the physical and psychosocial needs of the child.

TERMINATION OF THE SPONSORSHIP

- When the child has achieved the age of 18 years

- When the family’s economic position has improved and it does not need this service for meeting the educational needs of their child/children.

- The child has stopped going to school/anganwadi (except in special instances of disability or illness of the child which shall be verified by DCPS).

- Child has been once again placed in an institution.

- In case child has medical problems and parents are unable to take care.

- In case both parents have become incapacitated or unfit to look after the child.

- In case grandparents are incapacitated when parents are not allowed.

- In case family is receiving any cash assistance for the child under any other Scheme of State/Central Government

- In case the child and family is unable to adjust even after being with each other for at least three months

Sponsorship guidelines in Delhi places more conditions for terminating the support, which is as follows;

- If the child disappears and his/ her whereabouts is not known to the parent or the person having charge of him/ her, however, it is crucial to continue with the same as soon as the child is found/ recovered/ is returned to the family.

- If family of the child shifts place of residence within Delhi and fails to inform the DCPU. However, the sponsorship may be renewed if the family informs the DCPU within 3 months of such change of residence.

- If misuse of sponsorship support is reported or if the financial aid is reportedly found being used for purpose other than well-being of the child.

- If the child is no longer a child in need of care and protection and is so declared by the Committee or the Board.

- If the information furnished by the parent or the person having charge of the child is found to be untrue, false and fabricated.

- In case of death of child under sponsorship within sponsorship duration

- In case attendance to Anganwadi centre drops below 60% and attendance to school/vocational curses drops below 75%, except on medical grounds.

04

SPONSORSHIP STRUCTURES IN BEST PRACTICE MODELS: AN OVERVIEW

This chapter documents different Sponsorship program practiced by sample organizations interviewed for the study. The sample organizations were asked a set of semi structured questions to get information on aspects and mechanisms of sponsorship they practice. The information is documented in this chapter as narrated as well as referred to the annual reports or other documents suggested by them to know more about their models.

Community Based Alternative care through Sponsorship in India- Best Practice Models

KEY FINDINGS: WHAT WORKS WELL?

START SMALL AND EXPAND: It is recommended to start with smaller groups of children and their families in the selected communities and then expand into other areas of the community when there are already children who have experienced alternative care interventions. However, the core of reaching children is to reach families. Small interventions at the community levels initially make big difference. For example, an NGO can start community level interventions with establishing learning centres starting from 23 villages in the beginning where children from these 2-3 villages/wards can be taken to provide remedial support. Start to motivate these village /city families to send their children to school in regular intervals, campaign for their re-enrolling in schools, bridging them in education centre and re-admit in school with good rapport building to government schools. When the community see children who were earlier dropped out got enrolled to school, the community members will have a trust on organization and then the community development interventions can be owned by the community itself. Some results of orgnization’s work helps to gain communities trust which takes time but once they get trust on the organization, the NGOs can even get free space to run the activities.

INDIVIDUALISED CARE FOR THE CHILD: Need assessment and individual care plans for each child requiring family based alternative care as every child is unique and their needs differ. The supports are to be planned by the organizations based on the need of case-to-case basis. Additionally, the international human rights law and policy makers understand the importance of family for a child globally, hence family-based care with individual attentions has to be accorded a high priority. Implementation of sponsorship with individualized care happens either with a group of staff catering to few families in the small pockets of communities; or selecting volunteers from targeted communities know the communities better.

ENSURE CHILD PROTECTION WITHIN THE FAMILIES: Parental abuse is common across all sponsored child mainly where street children are located. Sponsorship project is difficult in such cases and it needs individual interaction (one-to-one) support. Identification of abuse incidences, counselling supports on one to one basis stands critical.

EDUCATION AS AN EMPOWERMENT, NOT ONLY ACCESSING SCHOOLS: Education is an invasive instrument to bring about sustainable empowerment among the children, especially adolescents. If Sponsorship can be conceived as an empowerment angle, there can be much positive result. For the sponsored children there has to be parallel sub component where mentors can keep inputs in terms of resilience, self-management, decision making, gender manifestation, Sports etc. are very good means to bring about changes among the children

ROLE OF SCHOOL IN ENHANCING FAMILIAL SUPPORT: Support of the families, including parents aspiration helps to bring positive educational development among children. For example, in the same school, some children excel and some do not. The factors are not only merit of the child or other external factors, but familial structure or social structure where the child is brought up plays an important role. It is important for schools to should have good connect with parents of children, interventions for parents awareness, capacity building of parents to upkeep their motivation for their ward’s education.

RAPPORT BUILDING AND COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION: Communities should be the centre of interventions for Sponsorship program because without community mobilization, children of the communities can not be reached. The first step is therefore to analyse the needs of the community. It is essential to prepare 4-5 agendas with different stakeholder (women, village leaders, children, youth adolescents, govt officials, peoples’ representatives PRI members, teachers, doctors etc.) and talk to different people in the community to get their need and prioritise the needs considering the available resources and capacities of the organization.

INNOVATIVE COMMUNITY INTERVENTIONS: The community interventions are not necessarily to be cost intensive, rather it can be innovative enough to attract the members. Many organizations interviewed for the study mentioned that in low cost workshops, campaigns or informal talks involving community members, sports / painting competitions in schools etc. community members participated enthusiastically that helped the organizations gain community trust. In certain instance, community people may look for short term gain but organization’ duty is to mobilize and make them understand about long term opportunities. If community can see their benefits, which are not necessarily the monitory benefits, they get attracted to the interventions.

WORK WITH THE SYSTEM: Government officials are important stakeholder. The definitive accountability to protect the children of a homeland lies with the Government. Advocacy and supporting the existing government system will bring benefits to the children in family based care and the entire community per se. For example, if disability certificates, caste certificate, Adhaar card are required for the community members, community based organizations have to work with the prevailing system and strong advocacy with govt officials along with community members support stand critical. A lot of time to be spent to the officials and with continuous engagement and rapport building, the officials eyes must be on the organization and that will yield result in giving the certificates on priority basis.

FAMILY STENGTHENING TO ENSURE BETTER FAMILY BASED CARE: Family strengthening components and helping parents improve livelihoods designing economic support programs. Some examples are, arranging small loans or grants for business, linking families with social security schemes of labour department; housing schemes, disability scheme, insurance scheme, giving access to legal identity documents, forming Self-Help groups with small business developments, apprenticeships or vocational job-based skill supports to gain employability for parents etc. It also appears logical to empower families though Income Generating Activities as the long-term sustainable solution to poverty which is a major cause of child vulnerability and poor care in families. Few families which are too poor to be

helped by income generation activities or skill-based trainings would need cash transfers or direct measures like loan arrangements as emergency measures.

ENCOURAGE CHILD PARTICIPATION THROUGH FORMATION OF CHILD/YOUTH GROUPS IN

COMMUNITIES: Children and youth in the community become ‘Agents of change’ in their own lives and mobilize their peers to action. Child participation in identification of beneficiaries, talk to the peer children to identify the problems, designing of interventions and monitoring service delivery etc. are critical to provide community children with a platform to discuss child rights and development issues and reimagine local solutions.

CHILD CLUBS or YOUTH FORUMS in the community, with consent from parents (refer Annexure 4 for sample consent form) proved to be effective to get faster outcome, as narrated by the sample organizations.

SPONSORSHIP STRUCTURES IN BEST PRACTICE MODELS: AN OVERVIEW

Child

Fund India, Bangalore14

Introduction

Since 1938, ChildFund has partnered with community-based organizations to enhance the care and wellbeing of children, creating opportunities for girls and boys to thrive and achieve their full potential. Today, ChildFund International has a presence in 25 countries. The organization currently implement programs through local partner organizations in 21 countries and support sponsorship in an additional 4 countries as a member of the ChildFund Alliance. With the mission to “help deprived, excluded and vulnerable children improve their lives and become adults who bring positive change to their communities, and to promote societies that value, protect, and advance the worth and rights of children,” the organization strives to mainstream the lives of the most underserved populations who have not been accessed by development efforts or are living in difficult terrains. A majority of ChildFund’s programs are in remote rural areas like tribal belts of Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. Some of these areas have not been even accessed by government agencies.

a. Types of Sponsorship

The organization’s India counterpart has both individual child sponsorships and group sponsorships in their identified communities through global and local sponsors. The sponsors

14 Information taken from in-depth interview with representative of Child Fund, Bangalore and secondary resources such as, i) official website of Child Fund, ii) published reports accessed from website

are individual, group through church etc. of USA and European countries. The children are selected for sponsorship program from 0-10 years age group.

b. Identification and placement process

To access local sponsorship, various means are used; i) organization’s vision & mission statements, coverages of children, impact stories, the presence of vulnerable children in certain communities are mentioned in Child Fund India website along with uploading of annual reports pleading for sponsoring children. ii) fund raising team volunteers of the organization selects prospective sponsors through either through existing donors or word of mouth communication; iii) advertisement in social media sites with details of the children, family profiles who can be taken under sponsorship program. The peer agency is in USA who select sponsors and share the child details from the website and allot the sponsor to the child. When the connection is done, Child Fund’s country director of India send a “Thank you” letter to the sponsor for selecting the child.

Community selection and decided by the international office. ChildFund have the initiative called Community-Based Child Protection (CBCP) Mapping which is a global toolkit and trained the staff and partners to conduct participatory research with communities, families and children. The toolkit is to identify the forms of abuse, neglect, violence that children face and identify the root cause of these. India has certain criteria for selection of children and based on that selection of children happens from the communities. The details of children and families are then uploaded in the centralized website developed by SalesForce-The IT Partner of CF India. Social Mobilisers collect the data about children and their families on the basis of 3 main criteria; DEV-Deprived, Excluded and Vulnerable families only with predefined vulnerability criteria by Child Fund International. The vulnerability criteria in Indian context include,

i) HIV affected children, children in bangle making etc.

ii) Children with income of families not more than Rs. 1 lakh per annum in urban area and Rs.70000 per annum in rural areas.

iii) Children with families having a permanent place of stay and the families should be living in the location for a minimum 2 years.

iv) At least one or two persons in the family should be basic literate in urban areas but it is not the criteria in rural set ups.

Date of birth proof, ration card, school certificate etc. are collected in urban areas as evidence before enrolling in sponsorship program.

Sponsor-child Communications

After the selection of the sponsor and allotting children to the sponsors is done, the first communication goes from the selected child, who sends a gratitude letter addressing the

sponsor which goes through the organization to the specific sponsor. Videos of sponsored child and Annual child progress report, mentioning child’s location, class studying in, height and health status of the child etc are shared with the sponsors so that the connectivity between the sponsor and children are retained. Lot of technology has been innovated and software/website has been developed by SalesForce-the IT Partner of ChildFund India to smoothen the process of sponsorship communications between sponsors and children and staff.

Sponsor-Child communication using technology

ChildFund has deployed a new online tool called the Letter Translation Exchange (LTE) to facilitate the digitization of child and sponsor correspondence and reduce the time it takes to translate the letters. The technology is meant to enable the staff to do their jobs more efficiently while reducing the time it takes for correspondence to travel back and forth. The LTE is ChildFund’s first step in modernizing that communication between sponsor and child. National Office staff will scan letters to create PDFs, which will be uploaded into an online document system. Translators can then access the system at any time and from anywhere via the Internet to translate the letters. Once translated, each letter will be printed out and mailed to the addressee.15

d. Interventions and Best Practices

The organization recognises that Children have a right to be protected from abuse, neglect and exploitation and forms of violence against which children are preventable and unacceptable. The components of sponsorship therefore include child protection in the community, educational supports, health, hygiene, and nutrition programs and livelihood strengthening activities. However, a part of the sponsorship amount directly caters to the sponsored children whereas remaining amount goes for the community development interventions. The interventions at the community level by Child Fund India to cater sponsored children as well as others in the selected vulnerable communities include,

- Community Based Child Protection Mechanisms (CBCPMs): CBCPMs are groups or networks of community members who work together to address abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence against children. A CBCPM can take the form of a formal committee that addresses multiple types of harm, or a less formal group that works on one particular aspect of child protection. Communities have their own of protecting children from abuse, exploitation, neglect and violence in the home, school or community. CBCPMs works on strengthening child protection, responding to incidents of harm against

15 https://childfundinternational.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/letter-translation-exchange-in-sri-lanka/

children, and referring case social workers, police, health care and other agencies responsible for protecting children.

- Child Protection program in Schools: Field staff plan for awareness programs and activities in the beginning of the years looking at the community level problems; as part of the program, field staff encourage and support schools to develop child-friendly, inclusive cultures with policies and codes of conduct that prohibit bullying and corporal punishment; field staff help schools and teachers to develop violence prevention plans as well as build the capacity of caregivers to prevent, mitigate and respond to violence.

- Child-Friendly Space in Community: Psycho-social support for children by setting up child-friendly space in community by creating a hub for children for learning, socializing entertaining etc. Enthusiastic volunteers from the community managed the Child-Friendly Spaces and played an important role in their success. The volunteers engaged children, mostly never-enrolled, in sessions including reading, counting, drawing, games, drama, singing and story-telling. In some project areas, simple measures such as, situating the Child-Friendly Spaces close to households, providing children with shade in the very hot climate, and giving them snacks and drinks also contributed to their success.16

- Involvement of the community and increase community awareness: Communities are sensitised about the importance of formal education for children and young adolescents ages 6 to 14 years old, ensuring participation of community in building child friendly spaces. The community participation in building and managing the Child-Friendly Spaces helped to develop local ownership of the initiative that proved to be much sustainable model in many countries where child fund operates.

- Formation of Youth Club and Child Club: Children and youth become agents of change in their own lives and mobilize their peers to action. These child and youth club interacts with children and adolescents of the communities, understand their reality, often highlighting types of abuse and exploitation of which adults are unaware. While talking to their peer, the provide information about the help the organization imparts to children and adolescent girls, and about the available laws and rights to support and protect them, thus motivating them to gather courage and raise their voices against the atrocities happening to them.

- Youth-led safe spaces: These are the protected spaces for youth to make friends, learn critical skills and serve as leaders in their communities. As experienced and practised by Child Fund, Youth advocacy also turned very effective in raising the voices of children in different platform. Hailing from communities characterized by poverty and violence, they

16 Impact Report, 2018, Child Fund India

had the rare opportunity to experience being listened to by people in power, which helped the young people understand that they could actually make a difference.

e. Training and capacity building

Field staff are from the community and Youth are mobilized through Youth Forum. Also, the education facilitators, counsellor are selected from among the community. If social mobilisers/ field staff are from the local communities, they can talk about local problems and it is easier to execute the program at the community levels with these local people. The organization imparts trainings and capacity buildings for social mobilisers and youth groups selected from the community in quite an interval before they start the community interventions.

f. Costs and finances

The sponsorship amount per child for Global sponsor stands at $33 per child in USA and Rs.650 per child per month in India. The primary expenses of the sponsorship grants are on education continuation including stationaries and tuition fees for the sponsored children. However, community development interventions and other costs directly or indirectly benefitting children in the communities can come into the grants based on amount received as support under the program.

g. Suggestions

• The sponsor-child communication and reporting should be in a structured manner starting from placement of the child to prospective sponsors. Apart from the traditional annual documentations required, time to time video testimonials from children and photo documentations with children’s scribblings or drawing etc helps to maintain good relationship with sponsor and they also feel connected with the child all the time.

Proper documentation of sponsorship amount expenditure is utmost important because without proper documentation about how sponsorship amount is spent, the sponsors might think that the organization is grabbing the money and sponsored children are not given benefits.

- Representative of ChildFund India, Bangalore

• Creating opportunities for youth in the community by increasing their individual resilience and improving access to safe education, livelihood and employment opportunities through individual sponsorships can be a key to make them change agents in the community and achieve sustainable community development. Youth group in the community, with proper supports and opportunities can advocate for their rights as well as can speak up for other children in their communities.

• Tackling social and economic challenges that cause children to be separated from families by economic and social support arrangements to the families through sponsors. This may include direct transfer of sponsorship amount to families to care for their children; or

indirect benefits to families by facilitating access to children’s services in community, awareness with positive parenting practice, vocational skill based training’s for families etc

• Building strong professional network between the organization and police, health services, parents, teachers, government, and local partner, and other actors working to protect children to identify and respond to cases of violence, challenge harmful practices, and transform attitudes.

• Mobilizing community towards community-based responses for vulnerable families and childre4n. Local leaders can be engaged in responding to the needs of vulnerable community members, cooperative support activities can be imparted for needy families and the organization also need to promote community also care for children without family support.

Community Aid and Sponsorship Programme (CASP) India, Pune

Introduction

CASP believes that no child due to economic reasons be left out from the opportunity of getting basic education. Hence CASP tries to identify children who are in need of support to continue their education and for this reason maximum participation of the donors is solicited. Thus, CASP supports model of Sponsorship which is an aid given to the underprivileged children for education, for a certain period of time, while the child continues to stay with the family.

a. Types of Sponsorship

The organization has Individual sponsorship program with either one sponsor catering to different children or one sponsor providing for one child only in the selected community. The CASP model of sponsorship encompasses a development which goes beyond just education. Children are encouraged to participate in sports, drama, music, art and other creative endeavors to develop well rounded personalities.

Sponsorship program of CASP is divided into 3 categories and a sponsor may opt to sponsor a child in any of the categories such as, - i) the Balwadi program is for children of 3-6 years age groups for which Early Childhood Care and Development programmes in order to ensure that children gets the best possible start in life; ii) sponsorship program for 6 to 18 years age group or completion of 12th std. whichever is earlier, for children in the selected vulnerable communities; iii) sponsor with scholarship for 18 years of age and above till the completion of higher education, or 21 years, whichever is later.

b. Selection and Placement

Children are referred to the organization from various sources. Teachers of Marathi medium schools in Pune refers children who are unable to pay fees or afford to continue education for CASP’s sponsorship program. Apart from that, communities as well as Pune Municipal Corporation also approach to the organization for selected children in different communities of Pune. However, based on the organization’s pre-defined vulnerable criteria and need assessment indicators the children are shortlisted for sponsorship program.

Case History of children being made containing education status, hobby, talents, health status, family’s income, family’s livelihood, number of siblings, family members health, types of housing, social status etc. Based on the case study, types of supports to be given are identified. Need assessment indicators includes,

- Checking of salary slips, wherever available or income proof of the parents;

- Observations of family situation, habitation through home visit and interactions with all members of the family;

- Cross checking of parent’s bank accounts, wherever available, to make sure families are not getting sponsorship support or cash benefits from other sources.

Based on the applications from families, the organization team do home visits to verify the information provided by families. The organizations SOCIAL WORKERS are the field staff responsible for home visits to take documents from parents and recommend for sponsorship based on home visit observations. Upon selection of families, the existing sponsors or the newly identified sponsors are communicated with details of children and families and the types of supports required. New sponsors are received mainly through word-of-mouth communications by existing sponsors, fund raising team or through advertisement in social media. In cases of migration of sponsored child’s families to other city or sponsored child discontinuing education, the sponsorship amount gets stopped for the particular child and a new child gets linked to the program.

c. Sponsor-child communications

In order to maintain connect between the sponsors and the selected children a series of communications and documentations are practiced by CASP. Individual file of a child made with Case study at the time of selection of the child which is shared with the sponsors at the time of placement. Annually, the academic progress report available from the schools along with tuition fee receipts, child’s individual progress in terms of growth, health etc along with medical bills, if any, letters written by the child and child’s photograph are shared with the sponsor. The organization’s protocol is not to share the address or contact number of sponsored children to the sponsors. Whenever Sponsors want to interact with sponsored children on their physical visits, CASP makes the arrangement of meeting in the organization’s office.

On special occasion like child’s birthday, sponsors send additional amount of money to buy special gift of child’s choice or send gift directly for their respective sponsored child. CASP arrange to hand over them either visiting the families or calling the families in office, ensuring

to take proper documentation of gift hand over occasion. This includes, taking child’s photo along with the gift, parent’s or child’s signature and a “Thank You” note by the child for the sponsors, which are shared with sponsors.

d. Interventions & Best practices

- Contact with families on regular basis: The organizations field staff keep continuous contact with parents of sponsored children that helps in enhancing bonding between social worker and parents of sponsored children. As a results of such bonding, parents share their problems and challenges with the social workers even though the organization cannot support them financially over and above the sponsorship amount entitled for the sponsored children.

- Linking families to available social schemes: Social workers are responsible to link the families to the department of Pune Municipal Corporation where benefits of different schemes such as scholarship, widow pension, etc. can be accessible. Parents are given information about the department from where they collect application forms of different scheme and social workers facilitate to ensure accessibility of those entitlements for the parents.

- Parents meeting in regular intervals: Parents meetings are important to let them understand how they should follow up their children’s education by visiting schools and interacting with the teachers. Their responsibility is not limited to only paying the school fees. During these meetings, parents are also sensitized about laws for child marriages and consequences of early marriages.

- Relief measures during pandemic: However, during pandemic the organization supported each family of sponsored children with grocery kits of worth Rs.1200.

- Education support to sponsored children: Education has been at the centre of all CASP interventions since its founding. Education has been viewed through two lenses. The first is ensuring all children receive a basic education which is of good quality. The second is to ensure that children women and young people have the skills necessary to participate in the work force and be economically productive.17 Therefore, to ensure continuity of education of all sponsored children which is the main focus of sponsorship program;

o Follow up for school continuity along with providing stationaries, books, uniform, bags to all sponsored children.

o Remedial teaching followed by IQ testing- With such testing the organization can understand whether the children have learning issues or children are not able to do well because of lack of quality teaching. Most of the children post IQ testing show positive results. Children who show poor result in IQ testing are considered as children with learning disability and therefore these children are referred for 17 CASP Annual Report 2019-20

remedial teaching after school hour. The format of these remedial classes tends to vary depending on local requirements.

o Aptitude test for children in 10th standard and provide career guidance;

o Vocational training programs for children and young people under sponsorship program. Spoken English course and relevant vocational trainings for young adults in colleges where the fees are paid from sponsorship amount.

o Digital literacy imparted among young people to provide job-oriented skills to the youth of the community.

- Supports to enhance family’s livelihood: To safeguard the children in the families, the organization is also ensuring that the family has a means of earning a decent livelihood with dignity. Increased incomes directly translate to better nutrition, health, educational attainment for children and hence CASP has been providing vocational skill-based training support to families with programs like computer training, basic and advanced tailoring, beautician course, cooking skills etc. To enhance family’s income, SHGs are formed with these basic skills and supported to market the products made by them.

- Support to schools: The organization provides support to schools with infrastructural improvements, remedial teaching beyond school hours, training of teachers with innovative teaching methods and preparation of innovative teaching-learning materials.

- Health interventions:

o Medical health checkups of children networking with PHCs

o In many families, it is identified that the alcoholism of fathers affects both the women of the families and children and hence they need Psycho-social supports. The organization appoints psychologist to take counselling sessions with fathers.

o Nutritional supports to children and families with HIV positive cases

o Training on home-based care for malnourished children and Referral of malnutrition cases to Govt nutrition rehabilitation centres by Pune Rural Unit.

o Different health & hygiene awareness program in the community such as, sessions on personal hygiene, menstrual hygiene, nutritional aspects for diseases like HIV and cancer, prevention of anemia and nutritional supports for adolescents.

e. Staff structure

SOCIAL WORKERS are the ground level staff, mostly in the organization’s pay-roll or community volunteers against honorariums, who are responsible to visit homes of the families, take relevant documents from parents based on the family selection criteria and recommend for sponsorship. ACCOUNTANTS in the organization are responsible to take receipts of tuition fees/ school fees and other activities under sponsorship grants and release the sponsorship amount to the parents against duly signed receipt of acknowledgement.

f. Training

CASP continues to provide its staff with both in house as also external training opportunities. This is done with the aim of ensuring that staff and other beneficiaries are able to perform at the peak of their abilities. CASP arrange trainings for the Social Workers in CASP team and Community Mobilisers who are the volunteers on aspects that include,

- Child Rights and Child Protection

- Safeguarding of children and young people

- Child Sexual Abuse and the POCSO Act etc.

- Innovative teaching methods and teaching-learning materials

- Modules of remedial teaching

g. Costs and Finances

Sponsorship amount stands Rs.7500 per child out of which 32% is kept for administrative purpose including HR cost, office cost and 68% is provided to the sponsored child directly. Out of 68% of direct benefit amounts for a child, 80 percent is for the direct care of the child and remaining 20 percent is for interventions for children such as arranging sports, examinations, summer camp/ holiday camps, organize activities like drama, play etc. The sponsorship amount includes the items as follows,

- Tangible benefits provided to the child;

- Child Centered Community Development activities;

- Salary of Social worker;

- Support staff salary;

- Staff training, exchange programs, annual felicitation, field visits, office rent/utilities and admin expenses.

Suggestions

• Frequent meetings with families by the social workers or volunteer community mobilisers is the key to the success of sponsorship program targeting community children. Parents responsibilities does not end with paying fees from the sponsorship amount and attending schools does not results in quality education. Until and unless parents are well aware of importance of education, and support children in improving, sponsorship program will have impact only in terms of access, not quality.

• Parents try to fulfil their children’s demands and do not let them understand their struggles in earning their living. According to the representatives of CASP, few children suffer from materialisms due to peer influence which actually results in depression, anxiety, decreased motivation, and selfish behaviors. The negative impacts ranges from putting financial strains to parents to getting distracted from studies and

developing unrealistic expectations. There has to be parents meeting at regular intervals to make them understand how they can speak to their children, share about their income and how they struggle to earn for the family etc. so that children gain practical knowledge about how hard it is for the parents to fulfil their ambitious demands.

Introduction

Giving a new dress may not cost much but when demand reaches as high as demanding a mobile worth Rs.1000015000, poor parents cannot afford naturally. ….children especially the teens cannot accept such denials and get into depression…

- Representatives, CASPINDIA

INDIA SPONSORSHIP COMMITTEE (ISC), PUNE

India Sponsorship Committee started with the idea that disadvantaged children in the communities needs supports at community levels and hence ensure holistic development for children through the model of sponsorship, creating a community that is as secure as a home, with mentors who guide spiritual and social development, and teachers to assist learning and skill development. The organization aims to ultimately make the children not just independent individuals but also the ones who give back to the community. Towards this end, the organization focuses on providing family-based care in safe familial environment developing children’s social, spiritual, educational, emotional and physical well-being.18

The organization’s sponsorship is spread over four existing types of programs are:

i) BAL GRAM- The residential facility that provides family-based care to nurture personal relationships, educational betterment, and skill development to 618 years’ age groups

ii) BAL SHSIKSHA – The formal education support in school with remedial coaching and non-formal education like brick kiln children’s literacy educational support in Pune; vocational learning support for older children. The support also includes extracurricular activities, sport activities and lab services for holistic learning in schools.

iii) BAL KAUSHAL - A program for local communities for building 21st century life skills and attitudes through guided interventions for gender equality and safety mainly for migrated children in Pune.

iv) BAL SAKSHAM – An empowerment program designed to mentor young women into becoming financially independent role models for the next generation, through mentoring and certified courses in professional and vocational skills.

18 https://indiasponsorship.org/about-us/our-approach/; accessed on April 2022

a. Types of Sponsorship

ISC’s sponsorship program include Individual, Corporate and Institutional sponsorship for all the components mentioned earlier. There are individual sponsorships for repatriated children as well as sponsorships for the institutions where mostly the Corporates or CSR funding caters to the whole program or specific components (like education, outreach etc.) for institutional development for all children under the care of ISC. Sponsors are either existing sponsors, or new individuals found on the basis of sponsorship requirement placed in websites; or from the word-of-mouth communication by the existing sponsors or network like GiveIndia who raise funds for ISC.

b. Selection and Placement

ISC believes that repatriation of Balgram children before 18 years of age cannot be encouraged even though family environment is much needed for children. However, few children to be repatriated to families for various reasons including children’s own will, are done so with financial supports to families linking them to individual sponsors from ISP’s existing sponsors. The individual Sponsorship program in ISC, therefore, is for the children of Bal Gram who are being repatriated to their families. While restoration of these children within their families, parents are oriented about the basic requirement of children like formal education, good nutrition, health, clothing, tuition fees etc. Needs of the families are assessed with certain indicators and based on the needs, either individual or corporate donors are linked to the families to sponsor specific amounts for the identified components. There are existing sponsors who know the Balgram children since many years and have seen the children grow up. Hence few sponsors spontaneously come forward to take responsibilities of repatriated children.

On the other hand, young adults moving to different living arrangements after attaining maturity are taken under Individual Sponsorship support that is, linking them to individual sponsors to help with financial support for continuing higher education which includes tuition fees/college fees/stationaries/books etc., living expense, mess fees/rent etc. health care supports/medicines/testing, clothing & accessories especially for group living, pocket money, case specific counselling / mental health support expenses etc.

c. Sponsor-child communications

There are 3-4 engagement points between sponsors and children in the whole year. After the sponsorship amount received, children send letter of gratitude to the sponsor along with individual case study and photographs of the sponsored child. In every three months, child’s development update (full photograph, psycho-social development indicators) is shared with

the sponsors. Every year, the annual progress report of the child containing academic progress report, physical health progress, mental health situations, participations in activities, visions for themselves etc. is being shared with the sponsors. Indian sponsors are allowed to meet their child according to their wish in the office of ISC whereas foreign sponsors can interact with their sponsored children through video call arranged by the ISC staff.

d. Interventions and Best practices

Good Nutrition, Good physical health, Continuation and consistency in performance in Education, Attendance in school in age appropriate grade, Connect to retain with the program even if the children go back to the families are the focus areas of ISC’s sponsorship program. The activities and interventions are built around achieving these focus areas.

- Formal education through Antar Bharti Balgram Schools: Realizing that quality education is key to round the children into well-informed, compassionate, and competent human beings, ISC implements formal and non-formal education through its Bal Shiksha component. ISC’s Antar Bharti Balgram School provides positive learning environment and make formal education accessible to children and adolescents from Balgram and Day scholars to achieve age and grade appropriate scholastic development. For the Antar Bharti Balgram children the effort is to provide post school hour coaching, extra studies, reading, recitation, group projects and home work on daily basis at a stipulated time to inculcate the discipline of reading hours and exchange of knowledge among housebuddies.

- Non formal education for Urban Communities and Migrant Communities around Pune: The need of remedial educational support was identified for various reasons since children in govt schools stay far behind in terms of amenities/infrastructure, capacity of teachers, quality of education of children, family situation of the children etc. The Community Support Class Centres are being run in the communities for 1st to 7th standard children, after school hours with ISC developed module called “read to learn, learn to read” focusing on building the comprehension/ reading in language and numeracy. This module is being implemented in schools also for the children.

- Community mobilizations and activities: There has been intense community mobilization and engagements through different interventions at community levels, orienting community about the activities and requirements of Community Support Classes Centres. Community level interventions such as involving parents in the process while communicating with children through parents meeting, programs at the community levels involving corporator, government, influential persons of the community etc. Communities are apprised of the organization’s intervention not only in terms of supporting education but also other crucial things where community supports are crucial like safeguarding child rights & child protection. Community interventions includes,

organizing health camp, growth monitoring, vaccination campaign, peer engagement session for children, session on malnutrition etc.

Due to intense involvement with community members, the community owns the program and offers free space like Community Temples, Samaj Mandir, Gym, community hall to run support classes for 3-4 hours per day.

- Tracking of children Families working in Brick Kiln : The organization keep tracking of the children of migrated families to know whether their education is being continued, whether the children need support. Field Facilitators are in touch of the Brick Kiln labour families on regular basis to understand the situation of these families’ children and extend support in whatever ways possible.

- Support to schools: It is identified that like experienced teacher and teaching pedagogy play a critical role in shaping students’ academic lives, infrastructure is also vital. Since school infrastructure a key element in a child’s academic as well as holistic growth, ISC has been supporting schools with educational infrastructure such as, building sports field, drinking water shed, smart class, science lab, badminton court, toilet renovations etc. through different sponsors.

- Develop socio-emotional skills: Along with academic sessions and remedial teaching, the life skill session like gender sensitivity, sexuality, abuse, girls’ safety etc. being talked among the children.

e. Staff structure

BAL MYTRI are the field facilitators for BAL SHIKSHA AND BAL KAUSHAL programs who are in the communities on daily basis for 5-6 hours, facilitates support classes in the Community Support Class Centres, arrange community level interventions, keep contact with families on regular basis and also visit the schools also to transaction remedial class module and life skill sessions for school children. Supervisors and Project Coordinators oversees different program and the work of Bal Mytri.

f. Training

- Periodic Trainings and awareness programs of Field Facilitators to transact the module in the community support classes centres as well as to impart life skills among children of support classes and in the schools.

- The field staff are also responsible for capacity building of stakeholders in the community such as, local corporator, teachers, government officials and other influential persons.

- As part of BAL KAUSHAL program, the field staff the families time to time to identify the need of training/ orientation; hold rallies on child marriages, sexuality, good behaviors that includes parents for spreading awareness among them. ISC has the dedicated team to provide counselling supports to parents and students from different institutions of

behavioral studies helps in mental health support program for children, as and when identified by the field staff.

g. Costs and Finances

According to the representatives of ISC, the minimum cost of individual sponsorship to cater to only education in Pune calculated as Rs.10000 per child per year. In case of sponsorship of the comprehensive care in the familial set up like Balgram the minimum required costs calculated as Rs.30000 per child per year.

h. Suggestions

Strength of community mobilization is that they own the program such as support classes and provide free space available in the community for certain hours in a day. However, the big limitation is that organization do not have control over the places such as, benches, posters, cupboard etc. could not be placed in those centers. Hence, building own space to run the support classes would be goods to cater more children of the community.

Plan India, Patna

Introduction

Child sponsorship is a development approach that is widely used in the international NGO sector. Child sponsorship has been a foundation of Plan International’s work since the beginnings. Through Plan India's child sponsorship programme, children gain an education, proper healthcare, clean water, protection, livelihood skills and other resources and opportunities that help them grow as individuals to become empowered citizens. The organization currently engage with 1.4 million sponsored children in 481 countries through sponsorship activities, communications and programmes. Back in 2006 the organization began to record the annual surveys that are conducted with all sponsored children. Since then, it has generated a unique and vast dataset from more than 12 million surveys conducted among 2.7 million sponsored children.19

a. Types of Sponsorship

Plan International’s child sponsorship model takes a community-based approach. Sponsorships are given to the targeted community as i) Sponsorship to the child and family

19 changing lives – an analysis of Plan International’s child sponsorship data

through individual sponsors (referred as ‘sponsored children’); ii) community sponsorship (referred as ‘sponsored community’), where children from vulnerable families and marginalised communities are targeted in particular through different sponsors. The sponsorship activities and programmes aim to ultimately benefit all the children who live within a sponsored community – whether they each have an individual sponsor or not. In this way, our sponsorship activities and programmes work on both an individual and a community level.

The sponsorship activities and programmes aim to ultimately benefit all the children who live within a sponsored community – whether they each have an individual sponsor or not. In this way, our sponsorship activities and programmes work on both an individual and a community level. Under the sponsorship program, children and their communities can access a holistic package of sponsorship activities, communications and development interventions over an extended period of year, until the child becomes 18 years old.20

Plan implements sponsorship program in India either directly to Plan’s selected communities or through Partnership Sponsorship Model in 70 countries21 including India where community identifications and interventions are planned and executed by implementing partner organizations.

b. Selection and Placement

Plan India’s approach is the Child-centered Community Development Approach (CCDA) where children in the communities are in the focus. Children are brought in the centre while functioning in the community. To attract the sponsors following criteria are approached,

- Program area overview- Priorities the areas, blocks from the secondary data base where sponsorship program will be initiated. Identify the partner organizations who are working on child and/or gender issues. Program area overview and partner profiles are shared with Plan International based on which Sponsor shows interest. National Offices in 70 countries implement the sponsorship program through different partners.

- Age criteria: The age criteria were 0-8 years initially with BPL family background or single parents or broken families. Now the children are selected based on the Social Criteria Guidelines of Plan International and identified children are called ‘Caseload’ and profiling are done of the children in MIS system. This caseload profiling is shared with National Office across different countries. Sponsorship program gets approved by the national offices.

c. Sponsor-child communications

Home visits and preparation of Sponsored Child Information: With approval of program and identification of children, the community workers visit the families and note the details of the children and families which is called Sponsored Child Information (SCI) that contains family details, types of houses, number of members, health issues, types of habitats. The Community Workers along with the details of children and families, takes photos of the children based on certain guidelines formulated by Plan.

Sponsorship Children Updation (SCU): Apart from SCI, the children’s details are updated every year and the format maintained are called Sponsorship Children Updation (SCU) with update on similar details taken in the beginning along with new incidence, challenges faced by children in family or in community etc. are included. Information of children and photographs are taken maintaining and signing Plan’s Data Protection Policy by the Community Mobilisers.

Preparation of Annual Plan- Activities are plan based on consultation with parents, children and community members through FGDs / meetings etc. which is also shared with the sponsors.

Letter communications between sponsored children and sponsors: This has increased school attendance. Sponsored children are encouraged to go to school in the communications they have with their sponsors and hence children who receives letters from sponsors have shown higher levels of interest to attend schools.

d. Interventions and Best practices

Plan’s sponsorship program spans a variety of areas, such as approaches to health, education, and water and sanitation, with the aim of bringing community-wide benefits. Program design is based in CCDA so that sponsored children are given direct benefit as well as community children are also reached in the sponsorship amount. For example, books, school kits etc are given directly sponsored children but dry ration is distributed to the whole communities’ vulnerable people (widows, orphan, single mothers etc.)

- Education initiatives and creating enabling learning environment:

o Provision of academic materials and equipment for Maths and Science Labs and also training the teachers on their use in certain project states like Rajasthan increased the interest of students in studies, most importantly in experimenting new ideas.

o Working with schools to improve toilet facilities, setting up libraries, provisioning of sports material, organising trainings on financial literacy, life skills and menstrual hygiene for girls resulted in increased school attendance.

o Provision of market-oriented vocational and entrepreneurship training to disadvantaged youths, particularly girls and young women in sponsored communities in several states of India, working closely with employers, parents,

community leaders and alumni to provide a conducive learning environment to young people so that they can create an equitable and sustainable future for themselves.

o Model school initiatives in two states creating examples of excellence in schools to deliver equitable quality education for all children, especially girls. This is achieved by creating child-friendly, stimulating and inclusive infrastructure in school, professional development of teachers for multi-level and multi-grade gender-responsive education, training and resource mobilisation on disaster risk mitigation and preparedness, formation and capacity building of School Management Committees (SMCs) and building children’s council.22

- Community School Interventions: Plan has worked with the Govt school system in the identified communities. It is important to identify the gap in Govt schools and provide support. For example, teachers training, school renovation especially toilets/sport ground, mini library in every classroom accessible for smaller children. This effort in the school campus benefit Sponsored children as well as other community children studying in the schools.

In order to increase the communication skills of children in Govt schools, Plan arranged different school-based workshops for children providing trainings and preparing master trainers among the selected children who can continue the program in their schools of the community. Comic making training was arranged by Plan India in few schools and prepared Master Trainers who continued the project in the schools. Only transportation cost and motivational amount can be given to these TOTs.

- Psychological assessment of children in community through Adolescent Health Centre in the Community: Mental health issues and psychological issues are mostly seen among women and adolescent girls. Few adolescent girls from the community are selected to form PEER EDUCATOR GROUPS and oriented on adolescent health, reproductive health, menstruations etc. Problems faced by women and adolescent girls in the community comes up when the PEER EDUCATOR GROUP talk to the families. “Kishori Sahayata Kendra (Adolescent Health Centre)” is present in every PHC run by Government where these children and women are referred. Doctors and counsellors are available in those centres for initial counselling. Problems requiring clinical psychological support gets referred to psychologist. Plan provided some physical support to these centres so that the govt’s staff in the centre can take special attention to the children/women referred by Plan volunteers.

- Formation of Child Clubs/ Child forums and Youth Clubs: Selection of club leaders is not only restricted to sponsored children. Anyone from the community can be the leaders of these groups. Child Participation is encouraged in the community giving opportunity for all children in the communities to raise their voices. In India, these clubs/forums of

children are active in 10 states that provide community children with a platform to discuss child rights and development issues and reimagine local solutions.

- Girls Advocacy alliance formed by Plan India to eliminate violence against girls and young women in the sponsored communities and to increase access to secondary education and job-oriented vocational training for vulnerable girls and young women in the two states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

- Formation of CHILD PROTECTION COMMITTEES: Representatives of children, women’s group, PRI members. The committee has to be oriented in the beginning and there has to be monthly meeting with CPC. Community mobilisers have strengthened the child protection reporting and responding mechanism in the intervention areas with the active involvement of children, youth, women, Child Protection Committee (CPC) members to prevent and respond to all forms of violence against children and young people. The committees are influential in stopping many atrocities in the villages such as child marriage.

- Interface meeting with community leaders: In rural areas Interface meeting with PRI members are arranged by Plan India where community level problems come up for discussion. In Plan’s experience, there are many success stories through interface meeting with PRI members and many problems at the community level got solved.

- Linking community members including children’s families to Government benefits: Community mobilisers have been influential in taking initiatives on raising the income level of poor families and support the youths in getting employment opportunities through establishing linkages with government schemes like, scholarship schemes for children and youth, linking youth to skill trainings institutes as part of Skill India initiative of the government, linking families to various departments to access insurance scheme, legal identity documents, cash transfers through ‘Jandhan’ account opening in the bank etc

e. Staff structure

In 22 villages in Patna, there are 13 workers covering 2200 children. The sponsorship program in a state is managed by the Sponsorship Manager. Sponsorship Coordinators are under the direct supervision of Sponsorship Managers who maintain database and other documentation that are office based. There are Program Officers and under their supervisions, ground level workers are placed in plan who are designated as “SAMAGRA BAL VIKAS MITRA (SBVM). The SBNMs are in the field all the time. Female workers as the SBVM are preferred to communicate with adolescent girls, handle domestic violence issue.

f. Training & Capacity building

Trainings and capacity building initiatives are at various levels in all intervention areas for stakeholders such as, government officials, local leaders, teachers, Plan’s internal community workers or volunteers, community members including parents, children and youth of sponsored communities.

- Ground Workers stay in the communities to support the families. So the core of successful sponsorship program is the identification and trainings of Community Workers.

- Skill trainings to disadvantaged youth to be gainfully employed or self employed

- Professional development and capacity building of teachers for multi-level and multigrade gender-responsive teaching pedagogies; creating child-friendly and joyful teaching learning approaches in Govt schools; using science and maths lab equipment etc.

- Trainings to children clubs/forums on girls safety and prevention of children for substance abuse to enable them advocate for themselves and influence promoting child rights in communities and government systems.

g. Costs and Finances

Plan’s Sponsorship program talks about indirect benefits to the children in community since there is no direct cash transfers to the sponsored children or communities. Per child cost in a particular State is calculated around Rs.5000–5500 including all components such as, community level interventions, HR cost, travel cost, campaigns etc. Apart from that there are material support to the community people, need based from sponsorship money. This includes, hygiene kit and dignity kit like saree, bedsheet, blanket, innerwear etc. based on the assessment of families in the communities who need them most.

h. Suggestions

- Child participation is the core for long term sustainability of sponsorship program: Encouraging Child participation of all children in the community, not only restricting to Sponsored Children will yield better outcomes. Such participation among community children, not limiting the interventions for only sponsored children guarantee trust of the community and there is less chances of conflicts among the sponsored children’s families and other children’s families. If from the beginning only sponsored children are targeted, the community will not be supportive.

Less cost-intensive activities of child participation enhance children’s leadership abilities. These children can then advocate better about community problems. Working with children, hence proved to be the most effective in Plan’s community-based program. When children’s capacity can be enhanced, they feel that they are not deprived.

- Identify children as the “Change Agent” and plan interventions involving children: children can be identified as the “change agents” and most of the information/problems at community level can come through them. Small budgeted workshop can be arranged

in the community involving children which proved to be very transformational. For example;

o In Govt schools, there is no creative activity for the children and hence a “painting competition” can be arranged in the Govt school distributing chart papers, crayons, pencils etc. to celebrate National Holidays like Independence Day or Gandhi Jayanti.

o Field officers/ Community Mobilisers also can be arranged for an interaction between school children and teacher asking the children to express their opinion about the learning happening in schools, whether they are facing some issues/challenges etc. Most of the children do not get scope to ventilate their problem in schools and those issues can come up in such interaction.

o Workshops can be arranged to enhance communication skills of children in govt schools, where some selected children can be prepared as the ‘mastered trainer’ who can continue communication skills enhancement program in the school for other children on regular basis. This enhances the confidence levels of children as well as the leadership skills.

- Supportive interventions, rather than cost-intensive ones in the communities: There can be interventions apart from Financial Support. More the interactions and non-financial supports to the communities, easier it will be to gain trust of community. For example, one organization may not sponsor all children of the community or provide financial support, food etc. to all children, but if some community members are struggling to get widow pension or access to entitlement, enrolment in schools and if they get support from the organization to mitigate these struggle, automatically they will support the organization’s intervention for targeted sponsored children as well and they will not oppose saying why only certain groups of children in the community are brought under the Sponsorship Program. As suggested by the key informants, keeping provision of only monitory benefits or material benefits do not help in sustaining the sponsorship program in the community.

- Supporting the existing Government’s system, especially for health interventions yields sustainability: Health Interventions can be sustainable only with Government system and need to link the families with government’s program. Need to ensure close collaborations with government programs. Plan has been implementing Community level interventions and they are sustainable as they are supporting only government’s flagship program.

- Working with the Govt school ultimately benefits children in the community: Since any sponsorship program centers around promoting education for children, especially girls, working with schools in communities is the key to increase attendance and quality of learning of children. To provide inclusive and equitable quality education in school, trainings with teachers for gender-responsive education, capacity building of SMCs, infrastructural supports to schools, sensitization of parents to defy adverse gender and

social norms and actively support girls to complete their education can proved to be very helpful.

- Establishing linkage of community with Government benefits: More community members get linked to government benefits more chance of sustainability of sponsorship program. For example, community has very poor financial literacy and hence NGOs can advocate to government for community orientation on opening of ‘Jandhan’ bank account and other financial benefits designed by government for poor. This financial literacy increases community members awareness and self-esteem in one hand and on the other hand, organizations benefit gaining trust from the community that helps in sustaining the program.

- Strong monitoring mechanisms in case of sponsorship through partners: In Plan’s own experience sponsoring through partnership was less successful than direct implementation in many ways. As explained by the ley informants, there can be favours in selecting communities and families by partners due to various reasons including local political pressures. Sometimes, age of the children is manipulated to avail sponsorship, particular communities sometimes there can be incidence of grant misuse or non-delivery of gifts sent by the sponsors for their sponsored children. To rule out all these possibilities, there has to be direct monitoring element of the organization and make criteria for joint venture by the main organization and implementing partner in material distributions to the beneficiaries. Guideline has been formulated for the Community Workers to take letter from the children after each distribution of in-kind gifts from sponsors. As part of monitoring, there should also be surprise visits by main organization to the sponsored children’s families for cross verification about whether they have received the benefits or materials.

Baliga Trust, Delhi

Introduction

The Baliga Trust operating its diversified activities in slums and resettlement colonies of National Capital Region of Delhi and performing various developmental activities comprising education, women’s empowerment livelihood promotion, child rights and protection, health and sanitation for over five decades. The interventions of the Trust focus on marginalized and disadvantaged people belonging to socio-economically weaker sections of the society especially children, youth and women for their socio-economic rehabilitation. The Trust has been the implementing partner of Plan India’s sponsorship program in the Trust’s identified communities in Delhi.

a. Types of Sponsorship

The sponsorship program in Baliga Trust moves around the Child Cantered Community Development Program that is aiming to ensure child right to protection, health care, early childhood care and quality education, their participation in governance, safe and healthy living environment, Health, Water, Environment and Sanitation and improved income of family. Sponsorship grants are utilised for community development that in turns increase the wellbeing of children, ensuring continuation of education, on-time immunization, no child sleep hungry, better health & hygiene practices, institutional births etc. Apart from that community level development such as road renovation, economic betterment for disadvantaged children are also taken in the sponsorship amount.

b. Selection and Placement

Major criteria for selecting children for sponsorship support include; i) selection of children whose family incomes are less than 3 lakh per annum, ii) selection of children from SC/ST families, iii) selection of children from the families who are settled in Delhi etc. Even though the Trust has pre-defined poverty indicators and time to time need assessment to select families to bring under sponsorship grant, community people are also given space to voice their opinion about which families in their respective communities are to be brought under the program.

The organization has developed MIS about situations of the communities with health indicators, economic indicators, educational indicators. Need Assessment of community has been done every year and updated about information on children and families in the family MIS portal maintained by the Trust. Migration process from source to Delhi is also taken into consideration while selecting the communities.

Documents to be check from identified families: Sponsorship Family Format and Consent form and a format with details of the child (name, medical history, social history, their root, education status) are taken from the families. Introduction set by children declaring themselves as Baliga Trust’s sponsored children along with their photographs are also kept ready by the field staff.

c. Sponsor-child communications

Connection between the Sponsors and the sponsored children are maintained through the BALIGA TRUST in terms of sharing greetings cards, gifts, updating child’s progress reports to the sponsors. Annually or Bi-annually the foreign sponsors visit India to meet their respective sponsored children informing the trust through proper communication channels and with the help of Interpreters they interact with the children in face-to-face interface. However, to maintain privacy of the children, their address or contact details are not shared with the sponsors and the sponsors do not have any access to directly benefit the families.

d. Interventions and Best practices

- Education as foremost priority: Education is the most prioritized agenda of the Trust and implemented different educational programs for various age group in project communities through Cluster Resource Centers. Educational programs include, i) Learning Centers (Bridge course) and Balwadies for preparing out of school children to mainstream them into regular schools, ii) Remedial Classes for retention of children, particularly the girl child in schools, iii) Continuing education Centers (including adult literacy) and Condensed Course Centers for young drop-out girls who yearn to get a formal certification for secondary and higher secondary education.

- Formation of Community Groups/Clubs/Forums: The Trust has formed different groups in the community level to discuss various issues through the members of different groups/ clubs so that their problems gets identified in the meetings of these groups/ clubs, members get sensitized and together they can work on mitigating the problems. For example, Youth Clubs were formed to discuss about the eve teasing through informal talk only and not with blame-games. Impact is visible when these boys bring their sisters into these meeting and one can understand that barriers are breaking. 43 groups of children, 43 groups of Youth, 56 groups of women. 903 SHGs formed for the whole area of operation.

- Community based ward level Child Protection Committees are functional in intervention areas for sponsored children as well as other children in the communities. The committees formed under the sponsorship program to engage the members as important stakeholders. Meetings with the members discusses the issues such as, creating inclusive environment in the community like safe streets, safe blocks especially for girl children.

- Support to the schools:

o Formation of school level committees: Protection Committees, WASH Committee along with the school teachers. The Trust organizes regular meeting with Bal Sadan, and SMCs in intervention for schools; arranges Mathematics quiz or Science quiz with school children with the specific objective to increase the learning level of students in school.

o Infrastructural support to schools: i) renovations of toilet, ii) development of IEC materials; iii) teachers training on classroom transaction and handle behavioral issues of adolescents; iv) supply for water units or advocacy with government for safe drinking water; v) renovations of benches, provision of fan/light etc.; vi) supply of stationary, bag, TLM etc. to children through PLAN’S own funding.

- Support to families

o Keeping regular contacts: To maintain regular contacts with the families, a volunteer pool of 41 youth members who are in contact with families during COVID time. An MIS of families with address and contact numbers are maintained.

o Establishing linkage with government’s respective department: To enable families access Aadhaar card, community certificates, birth certificates for children etc. they are linked to different government departments to access their entitlements.

o Family counselling centre for the families to handle domestic violence cases. In the absence of counsellor, the psycho-social issues cases were referred to professional therapist in hospitals.

o Family strengthening: Sakhi Sangham Society for Social Change, a federation of 25 clusters and 903 Self Help Groups comprising over 18000 women is struggling to coming on its own. Plan India duly supported to strengthen it towards women’s empowerment in the community. It’s one of the best examples of sustainability of the project in urban context. The federation is totally controlled by women members and doing brisk business in catering, stationary supply, sweater weaving, sanitary napkin making and jewelry making. The federation has also been addressing the local issues and concerns of child protection and women’s safety. 7000 women involved in 13 sectors of entrepreneurship in the interventions areas of the trust.

- Youth empowerment towards training & employability skills: The Child Centered Community Development Program under Sponsorship Grants supported economic empowerment for youth through Economic Empowerment and Employability. Apart from that, the SMART Center for job oriented vocational training has been providing the quality infrastructure and training since April 2017 for the better job opportunities for under privileged youth. Baliga Trust with support from Tech Mahindra SMART Centre has been providing Spoken English, Basic IT, Retails Sales and Work Place Readiness courses to all enrolled youth.

- Community Awareness Activities

o Gender sensitization programs through the GENDER RESOURCE CENTRE

o “Touch Rugby” with mothers of girl children to make them aware that sports also necessary for their daughter’s development and empowerment.

o Girl’s Safety Walk arranged involving girls as well as stakeholders like SHO, Police Personnel’s and Ward Councilor & Market Association leaders to make the participants aware about safe and unsafe places and situations like eve teasing by boys near the street corners.

o Delhi Against Dengue Campaign helps to create awareness among the families on prevention.

o “Saas-Bahu Sammelan” conducted quarterly with the objective to fill the gap between Mother would be Mother and older care giver of the family to improve the Maternal and child health

o “Baby Shower Program” arrangement for pregnant women in the community to spread awareness on precautions to be taken during pregnancy, ante natal and postnatal care etc.

o Campaign “Break The Silence” about the child sexual abuse with slogans “Chup Na Raho Maa Se Kaho” (Do not be silent, tell your mother), to create an awareness and space for discussion between mothers and children

Efforts yielding impacts…

INCREASED ADOLESCENT GIRLS’ SAFETY AND ACCESS TO PUBLIC SPACES due to training and knowledge based events for government ; Support community meetings/discussions on promotion of gender equality and girl friendly public spaces; strengthening formal partnerships, networks, and forums to enhance advocacy work; advocating for creating safe and inclusive cities for girls; awareness raising campaign targeting the general public about girls’ safety in cities; interface meetings the key stakeholders to abreast with the situation about issues faced by girls in their communities etc.

INCREASED CHILDREN PARTICIPATION IN URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND GOVERNANCE due to establishing and strengthening of girls’ clubs and boys clubs; organizing recreational activities for girls’ clubs to strengthen membership; trainings for girls using the Girls with specially developed module “Being safe in the City”; bringing girls clubs together and establishing peer-to-peer networks/forum; linking girls’ groups with local government authorities, CSOs, women’s movements; organizing regular meetings between the girls’ and boys’ clubs to discuss issues of safety and inclusion etc.

e. Staff structure

The Sponsorship program has the Program Manager heading the team, 3-4 Coordinators are the supervisory staff for different themes such as Sponsorship Coordinators Education Coordinators (elementary and higher education coordinators), Health and WASH Coordinators, Economic/ Women’s empowerment coordinator, Protection and participation Coordinator.

At community level there are Field Officers and COMMUNITY NODAL POINT PERSONS who are volunteers in every street of Delhi to update the peoples (not only children but all age groups in the community) whereabouts on regular basis. Each Coordinator have two Field Officers under his/her direct supervision and is in charge of 500 Caseloads and Every Field Officers in charge for 250 Caseloads.

f. Training & Capacity building

A number of trainings and capacity building events gets organized at different points of time for different people including community groups, families and children, government officials, and other stakeholders.

- Capacity building session with the sponsored children in the community to promote the good hygienic practices among the sponsored children and family

- Capacity Building program for the stakeholders in the communities has been the key to identify gaps prevailing in the communities. For example, families who are missing rations from the government were taken into sessions informing on the process to access ration cards and other entitlement documents. The session called ‘Public Samvad’ organized to understand the problems and link them to government’s schemes.

- Capacity building of Youth Groups of the community on child protection, Disaster Preparedness, Career guidance, Health and WASH, Education follow up of soft skill and communication skill training

- The Trust also arranges trainings and knowledge-based events for government and institutional stakeholders like police personnel, officials of government CCIs on child protection and safety of girls; Trainings are also conducted with transportation authorities of Delhi and staff increase awareness about adolescent girls’ safety issues in public transportation and to create a cadre of sensitive individuals who can respond in case of harassment while commuting.

g. Costs and Finances

Per family cost for each sponsorship: Rs.80 lakh per annum for 1800 sponsored families (that is, Rs.500 per family per month) and interventions are done by the organization through sponsorship grants. However, there is no expenditure directly for sponsored families except during pandemic when the families were benefitted with direct cash transfers. The primary expenses from the sponsorship grants include the following 3 major components:

- human resource salaries

- interventions/activities in the communities including Field Officer’s cost;

- capacity buildings of the staff/stakeholders/families, campaigning, innovative activity at community level.

h. Suggestions

Empowering communities through innovating activities/ interventions are the key to success of sponsorship program, or any other family-based child care program. The community interventions are not necessarily to be cost intensive, rather innovative enough to attract the members. If community can see their benefits, which are not necessarily the monitory benefits, they gets attracted to the interventions. As experienced by Baliga Trust, community owns the program and takes measures to solve the community level issues in their capacities even without intervention from Baliga Trust anymore. They are now well aware of girl’s education which is the only way to empower them. Community members identify the community services as their own. For example, they consider the hospital as their own and not only the responsibility of the government. So they participate and support in government interventions.

Children and youth of the communities need to be given importance and the implementing organizations need to understand that they are the key change agent in the community. Empowering children to own community level or school level problems and raise their voices is, therefore, the key to success. The Trust arranges monthly meetings with children of different learning centres and discuss on different issues. Information related to government schemes is provided to these children. Children themselves submit demand letters to the Deputy Commission of North Delhi Municipal Corporation asking for improvements required at community/schools such as, demanding spray of anti-malarial and anti-dengue medicine in their locality. They also submitted complaint letter to the ward councillor regarding unauthorized charging for use of community toilets etc. Hence, recognizing the agency of the children make them confident to voice community issues in front of important stakeholders bringing changes.

World Vision International, Kolkata

Introduction

World Vision International is the world’s largest child sponsorship (CS) organization, with close to half of all sponsored children from among the major international sponsorship agencies. The success of CS fundraising has enabled dynamic organizational growth, diversification and long-term commitment to disadvantaged children and their communities. Although there has been change in the way sponsors are linked to children, the most significant changes in World Vision’s CS activities have occurred in the area of programmatic strategy. World Vision’s community-based approach is underpinned and defined by its sponsorship model. Its Sponsorship Projects aims to create conditions for long-term commitment to and engagement with communities and to enhance programming by providing an ongoing social platform of community engagement.

World Vision India works in 143 districts impacting around 26 lakh children and their families in over 6200 communities spread across 23 states and 3 union territories to address issues affecting children in partnership with governments, civil societies, donors and corporates.

a. Types of Sponsorship

The organization works with both Global sponsorship and Local sponsorship for community development interventions improving the well-being of community children. Globally, investments through child sponsorship are substantial. According to World Vision’s latest figures, in 2016 and 2017, US$3.5 billion was invested to benefit more than 48 million children including over 3 million sponsored children and approximately 5.9 million of the most vulnerable. Child sponsors contributed US$2.6 billion of that amount, benefitting an

additional four more children for each sponsored child because of community-focused solutions.

Sponsor raising activities are done through i) word of mouth and face-to-face communication inside India which is the most successful method as Sponsors can see the transparency and get tax redemption in return; ii) Crowd Funding interventions iii) using television media though that is cost-intensive and iv) Internet communication through advertisement in organization website.

Any sponsorship project runs for 12-15 years based on the need assessment of the communities. First year of the sponsorship project is the assessment and designing of the project such as community based on Most vulnerable children (MVC) Mapping, Sponsorship Basic Training (SBT) for community and design of the particular project whether it is for nutrition or quality education or cross cutting interventions. In second year, the actual implementations get started.

Beyond individual children, households with a sponsored child or adolescent gets benefitted from World Vision activities. Through participation and collaboration of community members in programs, some people in community partner organizations, some faith leaders, and some community members built various forms of capital. Those improvements in human capital, social capital, and economic capital are all important mechanisms World Vision uses to strengthen communities and enable households and communities to better provide for the well-being of their children.

b. Selection and Placement

In terms of child selection, global criteria are established to ensure that the most vulnerable children are identified by community stakeholders and, with the consent of their caregivers, are registered for sponsorship. Choosing community depends on criteria that the communities have to be across India as WV works pan India. Across INDIA, World Vision has selected the fragile districts and maintained database from secondary information. This is done comparing all distr5icts and selecting fragile districts across India concentrating communities in need. Apart from that STATE CAPITALS are kept under coverage to operate smoothly. Out of Fragile Districts, few blocks get selected to bring under sponsorship coverage.

Assessment in the selected villages and children selected from the community based on Most vulnerable children (MVC) rating developed by WV on the vulnerability criteria. Those MVC family children are then selected for sponsorship. With initiation of implementation, parents of selected families are educated through Sponsorship Basic Trainings (SBT) about the sponsorship project and that even though the children are under WV’s sponsorship, the program is to reach not only registered children, but also other children and the broader communities in which they live. Sponsorship Basic Trainings also mentions to the parents that if the gift amount of money is less than Rs.5000, the amount will directly go to the particular

sponsored child but any amount more than Rs.5000 will be spent not only to the child only but for community development.

c. Sponsor-child communications

Two communications with Sponsors in a year and sharing of Seasonal greetings in the first week of the year. However, in every communication, children’s address and contact details are not shared with the sponsors as part of maintaining privacy of the children.

Annual progress reports and update on child’s progress: Annual Progress Report containing health status (height-weigh-class in school), full length photograph, educational progress report, some scribbling from the child in case children are not in the school-going age group (to be taken as personal communication from the child). Photos of the sponsored child, personal communication from children like sharing pictures they draw, or video testimonials by children describing their own situational improvement etc. can also be powerful drivers of connection. These provide a tangible way for sponsors to see the changes taking place in the lives of children.

Letter communications: First communication is from the child. If the child knows how to write a letter, the child himself introduce about himself to the donor. This introductory letter along with the photograph is then sent to the selected sponsors. Face to Face Coordinators collects these letters and photograph from children and visit the prospective sponsors available locally. Selected child is given unique ID and once the child in connected to a sponsor, the sponsor is also shared children’s ID so that there is no chance for duplicity in future.

Gifts on special occasions: Sponsors send letters to the children without mentioning any address or contact number of the sponsor and in response children write the letter maintaining same protocol of mentioning their name only, without address and contact number. Children receives gifts on the occasion of birthday etc. Sponsors can send money to the organization’s project where the specific sponsored child is into requesting organizations to buy the thing as per child’s requirement. Gift money does not go to the child directly from the sponsor. The project in-charge meet the child and the parents saying that a gift amount has come from the sponsor and what they want the organization to buy for them within the gift amount. Based on what they say, an agreement is made between the organization and parents taking parents’ signature. The signed agreement is then submitted to the organization’s office and with the sanctioned money, child is accompanied to market to buy the thing they mentioned in the agreement. For example, if a child wants to buy a dress, organization arrange to take the child and parents to market to choose the dress within the gift amount and get the receipt. Photo documentation of the child along with the purchased things and receipt from shop is maintained which are then shared with the sponsor along with a letter of gratitude from the child writing in details the things they have received with the gift amount.

Additional grants in foreign currency by sponsors: Foreign sponsor gift money in international currency which amounts a lot in Indian currency. For example, 1000 dollar can

be given by a sponsor. Such amount in Indian currency calculated to more than RS.60000 and hence only Rs.5000 are given to the specific sponsored child whereas a pool of sponsorship resources is maintained for community-based development. After a good amount of pool of resources, World VISION arrive at a proposal to the Community mentioning about the planned interventions that can be done for the community developments with the pool of sponsorship amount. Based on the priority material requirements, community decides about the things they require. For examples, in some communities, blanket can be first priority, umbrella the second priority, uniform the third priority and so on. Based on the priority setting purchasing are done with the pool of sponsorship resources and the materials are given to all children in the community.

Gift In Kind Sponsorship: This is faster and quicker. The person in charge distributes the materials to the sponsored children, documenting the distribution moments with photographs of those gift in the hand of children. Those photos with a “thank you” letter from children are shared with the sponsors.

d. Interventions and Best practices

World Vision under its sponsorship project has designed the programmes to ensure that ensure that they galvanise community-based care and protection of children, and enhance child participation and voice. Hence, programs are encouraged to ensure that child selection and monitoring activities are integrated into the development process, contributing to education, protection and other child well-being outcomes.

- Area Development Program (ADPs), which is the Community Development Approach: In the past World Vision’s sponsorship focused only on sponsorship operations, but now it has evolved and integrated with community development. It’s connected to child protection and education and health through community participation. WV’s work is facilitated through Area Development Programs (ADPs). This model of development involved long-term engagement in a geographical area (usually contiguous) to transform lives of children and communities.

- Education initiatives: The sponsorship project’s key is to ensure that children are educated through collective efforts in improving the quality of education and learning outcomes of children at different levels through trainings on life-skills, infrastructure supports, remedial education, strengthening of School Management Committees (SMCs). Educational learning assessment is done through PRATHAM and the slow learners are taken to RECs (Remedial Education Centers) who are taught by the method “learning through action”. NUMERICS and mathematics are taught through creative activities. Sometimes motivational gifts are given to the children to encourage them to learn in these centers. For example, dictionaries were distributed among these children. In REC, different models are there followed and trained Special Educators (mostly trained.

- Strong monitoring mechanisms for Sponsored Children: Child monitoring is an important part of sponsorship as it seeks to ensure that every registered child participates and benefits from World Vision programs. Historically, child monitoring was done only through visits to the home of the child. More recently, programs have been encouraged to better integrate monitoring with other community and program activities.

The community has shouldered responsibility to monitor the child placed in that community based on the monitoring format developed by World vision. In a year, there is always a gap of 90 days between monitoring by organization and monitoring by communities, such as, community monitoring in 90-days followed by organizations monitoring in 180-days, which is again followed by community monitoring in 270 days and organizations monitoring in 360 days and so on. Community monitoring strategies include:

o CHILD BASED CHILD MONITORIG (CBCM) where children themselves monitor among children. The whole of the children in a particular community are formed as Committee who will monitor their friends in the community.

o MOTHERS BASED CHILD MONITORING where the mothers will monitor their own children.

o YOUTH BASED MONITORING where anyone above 18 years will monitor their siblings or other children in the community.

o CHILD PROTECTION UNIT to monitor the children.

- Child care and protection interventions: Child Protection program is a must in the community. Every community got trained about child protection policies and to sign the protection policies. No one is allowed to take child out of the community without consent from the parents, based on child’s interest and one letter from the organization and accompanied by one of the community members

- Life School for Transformational Development (LSTD): Its yearly program for children in the community. Where children come together for 5 days, develop lesson plans, songs, activities according to the age group and divide the children in 5 groups based on the ages. The first day theme can be “me and my family” where children will need to know about themselves, their capabilities and how families are important, second day theme can be “me and my neighbor” where children will be given orientation about importance of neighborhood and how they can be supportive, third day theme can be “safety and security” where children will learn of different forms of abuse and how to deal with them; forth day theme can be “me and my environment” and final day theme is “me and my vision”. Around these themes, songs are being prepared and theatre play is organized by the WV families along with children who also compose the songs. It’s a community celebration and community hall/ school/ church/ temple spaces within the communities

are used up for the activities. On the final day, a stage is put up and parents are invited to celebrate the occasion, with children performing dance, songs.

- Address psychological issues of children in the community: A team of 2-3 members during the time of disasters, relief materials are distributed and after that session times kept for children in the slums to come up from the trauma they have experienced during the disaster. Counselling and psycho-social counselling are being carried out during the time of COVID happened. Community Mobilisers identify the needs of counselling for the children during their regular visits to the families. World Vision staff gets trained from NIMHANS on mental health issues which helps the staff to address behavioral issues etc. of children.

- Health and Nutrition interventions in the community levels: There is no health camp directly but encouraged children and families to visit to the PHCs. Health consciousness is not the matter of one day and prevention is much more importance than a health camp or checkups. Health satisfactory status for sponsored children has been monitored. If the levels are not satisfactory, they are linked to the nutrition centers (NRC) where children can stay for 15 days with supplementary food. A series of health and Hygiene requirements starting from washing hands before meals and 5 times a day, how to boil the water etc. are taught to the children and the families.

No cooked food has been served to any children in the community including sponsored children. However, malnutrition issues are addressed with special focus on children below 5 years, pregnant women and mothers through counseling, emergency feeding programmes, nutrition gardens, health worker training and infrastructure development at the Anganwadis (child care centres). As part of food demonstration workshop are done sometime where mass food is prepared to teach the community about nutritional values of different foods.

- Humanitarian Emergency Assistance: Apart from that Emergency Health Supports are given to the children, mostly the sponsored children. World Vision India brings life-saving support in times of disaster. We are committed to long-term rehabilitation, helping communities affected by natural disasters or conflicts get back on their feet. In the cases of accidents of a children caused by Disasters, (especially sponsored children) children are referred to the hospitals for treatment and of the treatment cost go beyond the sponsorship amount and budgeted amount of WV, local MLAs or people representatives are approached for financial help by the WV team.

- Community Disaster preparedness plan(CDPP) where the community has to come together to identify the disaster the community is facing and how they need to come out

of the disaster. This is done in every household level, and every member of the families has to be part of it

e. Staff structure

World Vision has the Design team and Evaluation team that works together based on the selection of fragile districts and community mapping but before they finalise the sponsorship project design, all the heads from different departments are consulted in the process of design and evaluation. The organization has separate sponsorship department that implement the project, with a total of 12 staff including 5 staff in the field23. The Field staff are responsible for implementation of the work and monitoring work twice a year. Sponsorship Coordinator is assigned duty to take care of the children in the community, taking letter from children, distributing gifts to children etc. In the organi9zation, one Sponsorship Coordinator is in charge of 2500 children since each project has 2500 sponsored children. There is a pool of volunteers/ Community Mobilisers in the community level against the honorarium of Rs.5000-Rs.8000 per month. One community mobiliser will cater to 300 children. It’s a big number but the thing is they do not need to spend much time with the families, just to collect forms and takes grievances, if any. Face to Face Coordinators in the field levels collects these letters and photograph from children and visit the prospective sponsors available locally.

f. Training & Capacity building

Life Skills Education for Transformation (LSET) in around 16 pockets : The term ‘Life Skills’ is used to describe a set of basic skills like creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decisionmaking, the ability to communicate and collaborate. Importance of life skills-based education Life skills help a person to live a healthy and productive life by making informed decisions, communicating effectively with others and developing self-management skills. These skills are often taught to adolescents, as they can help them successfully transition “from childhood to adulthood by healthy development of social and emotional skills”. Life skills-based education can help in the development of social competence and problem-solving skills, which, in turn, help adolescents to form their own identity. They help in promoting positive social norms that have an impact on the adolescents’ health services, schools, and family. The module has been developed as a for two sets of age groups such as 6-11 years age group and 12-18 years age group and translated in all regional languages. There are 17 modules for 6-11 years age group and 25 modules for 12-18 years age group. Each module has 4 activity levels and Different activity levels for different age groups. CHILDRENS CLUB formed in the community to transact the module with the children.

23 As per the information received at the time of interview with the organization representatives

Leadership trainings for youth: World Vision India’s capacity building initiative have empowered numerous vulnerable children by providing them with adequate training. World vision’s capacity building workshops on leadership for youth and training to the members of children’s clubs’ results in excellent levels of confidence, self-awareness, hope and resilience.

Organizational training for staff: Organisational trainings on technical programming on child health and nutrition, quality education, community engagement and sponsorship planning, sponsorship, finance, supply chain and administrative areas for effective programming and skill enhancement.

Vocational and job-based skill trainings: As part of ‘Economic Development Assistance’, a livelihood assistance programme by World Vision at community levels, financial education, technical training, life skill education, social support to individuals living in extreme poverty, so that they can graduate from the programme to sustainable living. Apart from that vocational skill-oriented training courses for underprivileged youth supported by World Vision to meet the demand for skilled labour and create sustainable livelihood opportunities.

g. Costs and Finances

The cost to sponsor a child through World Vision is $39 per month and in India Rs.800 per month. Sponsorship connects the sponsor with one special child, but, sponsored children don’t receive direct cash benefits. Instead, the monthly sponsorship is pooled for maximum effectiveness to fund long-term community development programs that empower a sponsored child and their community, as well as other children in need, to improve their own lives in lasting, transformational ways. Gifts by sponsors are provide to sponsored child and other children in need in the communities with basic necessities including access to resources like clean water, better nutrition, basic healthcare, education, spiritual nurture, and economic opportunities for his or her family, the community, and other children in need. Apart from that whole community gets benefitted with new or restored water wells, new or renovated schools and health clinics, as well as improved agricultural training job-based training improving employability of the adults.

h. Suggestions

Community based approach, rather than individual sponsorships: Sponsoring individual child or families does not lead to overall community development and reach the unreached who are in need as well because it is driven by short-term implementation objectives, rather than long-term sustainability goals. On the other hand, community-based approach yields manyfold outcomes as the intervention designed are not only for short term benefits for few families but ensure sustainability of the change process benefitting children and the communities, they are also into in the long run.

Child-sponsor communication and updates about child progress to keep the connect strong: Letter writing, or regular communication with their sponsored child, as the most important method by which they established a connection. Regular correspondence feeds a number of pathways to connection. These include building feelings of mutual care, bringing a child into a participant’s regular thoughts or prayers, and finding common ground.

Keeping the sponsors up to date on progress taking place in a sponsored child’s life as well as in the community is important as the sponsors feel more connected to the sponsored child. Research24 on World Vision’s sponsorship program reveals that some of sponsors are even feel more connect to a cause or an idea than with a sponsored child on a personal level. The child was seen more as an ambassador or representative for a cause, for example, girls’ empowerment.

Child based monitoring mechanism: This kind of mechanism where children of the communities are monitoring their peers in the community, bring many problems in the limelight that are faced by sponsored children as well as other children, which otherwise gets ignored. This helps in improving program for children and integrate the solutions to the government system also. The best thing about child-based monitoring is that they will not hide things among children. Exploitation and child rights violation issues will anyway come up. Children in such monitoring systems are working as “Agents” for their peers and it’s proved to an effective method of monitoring. The children are well aware of child protection mechanisms in the communities, and whom to approach in case of violations happens with them.

Hope Kolkata Foundation, Kolkata

Introduction

Hope Kolkata Foundation (HKF) is committed to providing sustainable development for the underprivileged and vulnerable members of the population with special focus on children and persons living in difficult circumstances by acting as a facilitator through community development providing education, vocational training, health awareness and service, shelter, nutrition counselling, recreation, rescue and rehabilitation, repatriation awareness on rights, emergency relief, capacity building, fundraising, socio-economic, cultural and spiritual development regardless of race, sex, religion or politics to achieve goals.25 The organization runs 8 Protection Homes (residential set ups, licensed under JJ Act) to directly benefit abandoned children; runaways, orphans, children with HIV/AIDS, child beggars, child labourers, victims of child trafficking, children of sex workers and at risk street and slum children. The sponsorship program of HKF is implemented for the repatriated children from

24https://www.wvi.org/sites/default/files/FINAL%20CSR%20Phase%202%20Sponsor%20Transformation%20Re port.pdf

25 Website: https://www.hkf.ind.in/WhoWeAre/OrganizationProfile#collapseThree ; accessed on January 2022

protestation home as well as children selected from vulnerable communities as part of its outreach activity.

a. Types of Sponsorship

Protection home sponsorship – the Homes based on their Counselling and family monitoring apply for sponsorship to Hope Foundation.

Outreach Sponsorship- The organization is approached by Families in the community or through word-of-mouth communications. Based on the vulnerable criteria developed by HKF and Social Mobiliser’s visits to the families to cross checks the family situations, habitations, income of the parents, education status and health status of the children etc.

In both the types of sponsorship program, HKF provides mostly educational and nutritional supports to the sponsored children.

b. Selection and Placement

The organization has sponsorship application form. Family in the community apply for sponsorship filling up the form with children’s entire details and family situations etc. The children are then linked to sponsors. The academic results, voter card, Aadhaar card etc. are to be attached along with the application. Team members visit the families, mainly conducts surprised family visit to cross-check that the reasons stated in application forms matches with the actual family situation. Based on Social Mobiliser’s report families to be brought under Sponsorship program are selected. Individual case history format to capture details of children ad along with cost estimation to share to the donors. The donors can be in India or outside. In case of linkage with outside donors, the case history of identified child along with cost estimations are share with Hope’s office in Ukraine. The sponsorship program terminates in cases such as,

o If family’s income improves and they request to stop the sponsorship for being able to take care of the child by themselves. In such cases. through HKF’s “update status” format, sponsors are informed about discontinuation of the child and place another child of same age and categories with similar needs, under the sponsor so that the organization do not lose the potential sponsor.

o In case sponsor lose income or death happens, the sponsorship from the particular sponsor gets discontinued and the children under that sponsor are placed with another existing sponsor so that there is no set back in continuing the sponsorship for these children.

o If children are not interested to continue formal education but take vocational training, they are informed about the various vocational training units run by HKF such as, bakery unit, tailoring unit, nursing training unit, beautician, restaurant skill, computer training unit etc. Sponsored children who lack interest for formal education are placed in any of the vocational training courses of their interest.

c. Sponsor-child communications

Sponsor updation with child’s progress: The organization connects children with the Sponsor through communications and continuously updating the progress to the Sponsors so that a kind of relationship grows between them that helps to sustain he sponsorship for long time. However, sponsors do not connect to individual child by themselves and all interventions re through the organization. Donors can meet the children in Hope office in presence of the staff but not allowed to visit the children’s houses as that can be regarded intrusion into their privacy

Letter communications: Children are allowed write letters or make greeting card for their respective donors mentioning how are they, what changes in their life has happened since the sponsorship program has begun. Along with these testimonials or gifts from children the organization also make progress report of each child and share with all donor on annual basis. Along with annual progress report, childen’s photographs are updated every year and while reporting recent photos of the children are shared with donors

Girls from the sponsors: Sponsors can also send gift or email digital greeting cards or letters to their sponsored children on the occasions like birthdays or Christmas. HKF arrange to take print outs of the letters or greeting cards and hand over them along with the gifts to the children and share with the Sponsors children’s acknowledgement of the receipt with details of the things they received.

Tele or video communication: Sometimes foreign donors unable to visit India frequently demand for video calls to interact with their sponsored children and the organization bring the children in office in donor’s preferable time to arrange the video call.

d. Interventions and Best practices

The COMPONENTS of the sponsorship program are:

i) Education Sponsorship along with books, uniforms, tuition fees and school fees nm case of children in private should;

ii) Health sponsorship with children with chronic disease and long-term disease. For example, for thalassemia, blood transfusion cost for children is getting covered under sponsorship;

iii) Sponsorship for special need children towards monthly nutrition/special educator;

iv) Sponsorship for street children to provide a shelter home as these children cannot get referred by CWC in HOPE’S Protection Homes as they have families. These children are hence supported with living arrangements in government hostels with a local guardian and the entire cost of children are borne through sponsorship.

- School readiness supports as part of ECCD for slum children: To ensure quality education by linking out-of-school street children to schools and motivating the families to send their children to Creche for school readiness supports as most of the children are first generation learners. The Bhagar Creche in Kolkata where 120 children of the age group 26 years have been provided shelter and support by the Bhagar Creche for their all-round development, while their parents go for works. The objectives of the crèche therefore is to increase safety of these children while their parents are away as well as increase school readiness among children of the slums.

- Ensuring child-friendly and inclusive environment in Govt schools and Resource Centers: Working with government school teachers with training on child-friendly environment in schools, especially for disadvantaged children to ensure completion of their elementary education and prevent drop outs. The field workers also work towards identifying Children with Special Needs (CWSN) enroll them in Govt Resource Centers and ensure they receive therapies in the centers.

- Girls Education support unit and empowerment program: Girl children in elementary and high schools are supported with daily tuition for English, Bengali and Mathematics in the Education Support Units ensuring better scoring in the board examinations. Additional classes offered on Computer, Music, Yoga, Counseling and motivational support to encourage creative and life skills development. Apart from that to enhance employability schools, participatory skills, personality development and social skills to adjust in the workplaces, vocational and job-based training programs are arranged for the adolescent girls under empowerment program of HKF.

- Sponsorship Community Coaching (education on the wheel): The Education on Wheels programme was developed to provide coaching support to under-served children aged 614 from Chitpur Slum and the surrounding area ensuring that drop out students are enrolled in school. The project staff organised an enrolment campaign, made home visits and held camps to ensure that the children attend school. This process included helping the guardians understand the importance of education.

- Naboasha Centers : Remedial coaching support for children on streets and slums: Community Coaching Centers for 530 street and slum-connected children of the age group 6-14 in the year 2020-2021, who are often engaged in child labor or begging as their means for survival. The center runs five days a week for both formal and non-formal children from 10 am to 6 pm. The centers provide support to these children’s primary needs; nutrition, shelter and healthcare. Part from coaching and other basic need support, the centres ensure children’s recreational rights; link children in government schemes such as accessing Digital Ration card/ Aadhaar card/ Caste certificate/ Aikyashree

scholarship, Swasthya Sathi scheme providing cover for secondary and tertiary health care, Kanyashree Scheme providing financial support for girl children etc.

- Catering to health care needs of street and slum dwelling children and adults: Street children and family members are given opportunity to avail services, care, diagnosis and treatment for health issues in the Hope hospital is a cashless initiative for homeless population. The interventions include medical support for street children and families, outdoor eye clinics for treat underprivileged with eye related disease.

- Reporting and Follow ups:

o Children’s enrolment number with the schools and bank account gets updated in the Sponsorship MIS maintained by HKF. Children also submits their tuition fee receipts as well as the school fee receipts to the organization’s office every month to maintain the transparency in spending sponsorship amount. Progress related to sponsored child’s education, health indicators, beneficiaries of health camp, number of awareness campaign, number of parents meeting and orientation sessions are fed into the MIS system on quarterly basis.

o The Social Workers have shouldered responsibilities to follow up academic progress and utilization sponsorship amounts by visiting schools and talking to the teachers; communicating with children during the bill submission date every month. If children or parents do not come to office for relevant document submission in a month, the social worker visit their homes to check the problem.

o Quarterly meetings and awareness program with parents of repatriated children under sponsorship to check progress of the sponsored children; outreach with parents especially mothers to understand their opinion about how children are coping in the family.

e. Staff structure

Under each programme, there are up to 6 tiers of employees, including social workers, caregivers, housekeepers, tutors, teachers, counsellors, and health & community workers. Administration & Accounts report directly to the Secretary. In Sponsorship unit, there is Program Manager - to deal with Sponsors and handle Sponsors data management MIS, the information system containing details like name and address of the sponsor, sponsorship amount and targeted category of children, sponsored child details etc.; submission of school fee receipts and other grant expenditure bills to the account unit, paying sponsorship amount to hostel of sponsored child and fee receipt collection etc.

The Social Workers are to deal interventions at the grassroot level such as interact with children, check whether fee submission in school in time or not, visiting families and schools as and when needed, arrange community mobilization interventions and campaigns etc. One Social Worker can look after 70-80 children in the community.

There are also Community support volunteers help to get information about families, get into action and inform the organization about the action.

f. Training & Capacity building

Workshops or trainings programs arranged for the internal staff through institute whoever interested to provide training. Ireland volunteers (teachers/professor/students) comes to India who are attached to Protection Centres or Coaching centres to teach children. Social workers, during their home visits identifies the behavioral issues of the children placed in community within families and based on need, counselling sessions arranged by professional counsellor placed in every project. There are frequent trainings to the community support volunteers on communication to families and follow ups on child’s progress, abiding the child protection policies while talking to the children.

g. Costs and Finances

Sponsorship amount requested from the sponsor by HKF for a child or towards operation cost of a disabled or poor child, specialized care for HIV/AIDS infected children, mother and child, vocational training for the women etc. calculated as Rs. 1500/- per month or 18000/- per year, that includes food, educational support like books, bag, uniform, school or hostel fees, clothes, recreational activities and the cost of the caregivers. While reviewing the applications the organization assess the types of schools’ children are studying in and based on that sponsorship amounts are calculated. For children in primary school the sponsorship amount ranges from Rs.10000-12000 per child per year whereas for elementary or high schools the amount ranges from Rs.20000-22000 per child per year. The tentative line items budgeted under the education and nutrition support sponsorship program are:

o School and tuition fees (annual)

o Boarding fees (annual)

o Bag, uniform, stationaries

o Material supports and maintain stock registers

o Nutrition and health support\

o Winter and festival dresses

o Parents meeting

o Workshop / orientation

o Documentation charges

o Computer maintenance

o Utilities and communications

o Staff salaries

h. Suggestions

Involve community people in selecting and following up Sponsored children: According to the representatives of HKF, the organization has to be very careful while selecting the families since some of the families misuse the concept of sponsorship in India. Few incidences were narrated by team members in HKF where some families try to link their domestic servants’ children for sponsorship program with a deal to pay less to the servants as their children’s needs are taken care of. While verifying the applications, the home visit team observed that the servants do not know anything about the linkage with sponsorship organization and are living with impression that their employer pay for their children’s education and other requirements. Hence, the effective idea would be to involve community people apart from organization’s social workers to visit the families and get secondary information from neighborhood also before placing children under sponsorship grant.

Community rapport building is the key to avoid misuse of sponsorship program: The core at the Community communication is to maintain transparency in offering interventions. However, community should not be in expectation that NGO interventions will always include monitory support. In the community’s convenient time, education sessions, life skill sessions, vocational skills for children are to be imparted. Showing impacts of organization’s outreach work will help in gaining community trust and seeing that children who were earlier dropped out now enrolled to school, the community members will have a trust on the organization and they will be spontaneous in cooperating with organization like selecting vulnerable families for sponsorship, following up their progress and report to organizations.

DISCUSSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the secondary literature reviews and information received from different organization implementing individual and/or community sponsorship program, this chapter aims to suggests viable options that may be helpful for providing community/ family based alternative care for children through Sponsorship and community interventions.

KEY ELEMENTS OF SERVICES IN COMMUNITY BASED CARE

Researchers and practitioners agree that children (as well as families) in high-risk settings require comprehensive services. In general, "comprehensive" highlights the emerging consensus that rather than offering a single type of service or adopting a single categorical program goal (e.g., substance abuse prevention, school retention, family counselling), programs should offer a range of services and have multiple goals. This perspective reflects the well-documented finding that children, especially adolescents who engage in one type of problem behavior often concurrently engage in others. It suggests that, to the extent possible, all needed services should be offered in a single site or at least under a single administrative structure. Regardless of the structure the goal should be to bring together a package of interventions that is easily accessible to the vulnerable children and their families.

There are numerous examples of locally designed and operated programs through which communities are beginning to address the risks that many of children face in the community. Many of the NGO’s localised interventions aim to strengthening families and communities to empower the parents and enable community people to increase their capabilities to provide for care and protection to its children. In most of the comprehensive models, child welfare agency staff serve as case managers who coordinate with government agencies and community-based youth programs to ensure the availability of counselling, recreational, and competency-building services, and often to arrange transitional housing as well (Merry, 1987; Spergel and Hartnett, 1990). The key strategies to cater to vulnerable children in communities can be as follows:

Vulnerability assessment and local solutions for Sponsorship

Identification and assessment of vulnerability criteria of communities and children belonging to the communities for the community based sponsorship program is vital and also the selection, hence, it has to be part of the main community based program design process. The first process involved is to select the communities, which can be selected based on vulnerability criteria. Few factors include access to the geographical area like, population density, risk factors such as natural disasters and violent conflict; availability of infrastructure; and community’s willingness to participate. Community Vulnerability Survey (refer Annexure3) can be important tool to select the communities requiring strategic planning and interventions for community development and well-being of children living there. The surveys can be done through interview of residents, secondary information analysis or field observations. Indicators and variables should be identified to measure exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity aspects of vulnerability. These indicators should be considered useful and reliable by both communities and NGOs as they are built from the information received from them.

Next comes selection of the children from identified and shortlisted communities. Children will be selected to reflect the diversity of the community, of all ethnicity and religious background within the community, giving priority to the poorest and most vulnerable children. Children with special needs, such as those that are disabled, lowest socio-economic groups and different ethnicities, should be included.

Criteria to identify vulnerable children include but not limited to the following.

1. Children living outside of family-based care (children in child-headed households, street children and children in institutional care)

2. Victims of abuse (physical, sexual, emotional or psychological)

3. Unstable environment (conflict, migratory)

4. Families with inadequate food (one meal or less), inadequate clothing (fewer than three sets including uniform), shelter less or poor shelter (temporary),

5. Poor access to basic social services such as health and education

6. Orphaned or Abandoned (parents known to be alive or assumed alive but cannot be located)

7. Parents or guardians cannot be located or are absent (are assumed dead or known to be missing and cannot be located)

8. Single/widowed caregiver or head of household

9. Female caregiver or head of household

10. Elderly caregiver or head of household

11. Chronically ill adult in household

12. Chronically ill child

13. Children living with HIV

14. Child labour

15. Illiterate/not going to school

16. Disability

17. Victims of neglect (physical, medical, emotional)

Child vulnerability is difficult to measure because due to certain general vulnerabilities in the families like poverty, orphanhood, disability, poor access to health, early marriage etc. leads to moderate vulnerability. For example, orphanhood could cause a child-headed household and as a result child may end up being child labour, living on the street, victims of abuse etc. This situation again leads to critical vulnerability among children such as; access to adequate basic services like food; shelter; health care; clothing; education and psychosocial support. Using Community vulnerability assessment data, the degree of children’s vulnerability can be identified, differentiating between children who are critically, moderately or generally vulnerable, and those not to be considered vulnerable at all.

Generally vulnerable

Orphanhood

Disability

Early Marriage

Poor Health

Including HIV

Poverty

Moderately vulnerable

Living in elderly headed household

Child headed household

Living on the street

Victims of abuse

Child smugglers to run family

Child labour

Critically vulnerable

Children with poor health or malnourished children

Children being out of school

Children being Shelterless

Children without enough food

Children not being immunized

Children whose births are not registered

In case children are linked to individual sponsorship, the selected children are representatives of the community to help sponsors to understand how their support is helping children. Sometimes, some of the most vulnerable children cannot be selected for sponsorship due to their high mobility but they can participate in shared project activities. For example, children living and working on the street are highly vulnerable, but without a fixed address may not be suited to the sponsor’s needs for a long-term relationship, but these children can be part of the community level interventions arranged by the NGOs.26 It is important to include the most vulnerable wherever possible, as this is a powerful symbol of their importance. It is essential to involve the community in selection process and provide community members to contribute their own ideas about which family and child need support.

In both the cases of selection, while administering the surveys or discussions with community residents, families and children, there has to be informed consent procedure explaining the purpose of the activity, that participation was voluntary, and that questions could be refused at any time.

To summarise,

- Identifying the vulnerabilities of the community based on community vulnerability assessment which are prepared through intense communications with residents of selected communities and presence in the field to observe gaps

- Selection of children and families belonging to selected communities who can be brought under the community based intervention (general community development

26 A tool for selection of children in World Vision child sponsorship

interventions as well as child specific interventions by NGOs and sponsorship programs.)

- Intense community involvement, giving them space for their own ideas in selection of vulnerable families and children, as community members much better equipped with knowledge of family situations.

- Informed consent procedure (Annexure 5, 6 for sample consent forms) to be followed by the implementing NGO for community residents (including community leader, influential members) and family members (head of the household or women member) informing about the purpose.

Motivate and Strengthen workforce engaged into community based alternative care, like sponsorship:

Organizations implementing community based alternative care through sponsorship supports face many barriers in terms of gaining trust, organizing communities, networking, resource mobilizations etc. As explained by different practising organizations as well as literature reviews support the fact that the Social mobilisers or the Field level staff engaged into family support or other community interventions face complex cases, limited resources, high pressure and demand, challenging working situations and limited access to supervision, coaching or mentoring. As research27 suggests, many countries notice high levels of fluctuations among Social Workers or Field staff as their social status and payments are not always in line with the critical role, they play in ensuring safety and development of children and younger generations, fostering equitable societies and assisting persons in need in the communities. Sustaining the motivations of experienced field staff is essential to make the community-based interventions successful and long term. Strengthening, motivating, training and capacity building of Social Workers who is are the key point persons to continue relationships with families and communities is an essential investment for any organization

Hence, there has to be careful selection of social workers based on not only their skills and experience, but also the motivation and commitment to work with children and recommendations from the community Trainings and capacity buildings must include understanding and identifying violence against children, protective environments and responsible actors for protecting children, national and international laws and conventions governing the rights of children, stages of child development, positive parenting/discipline, referral pathways, child friendly communication, sensitization and mobilization, conducting home visits, caring for separated and unaccompanied children, reporting requirements, supervision/coaching schedule etc.

To summarise,

- Employing Social Mobilisers and Field staff from the respective communities can proved to be effective structure to implement community based alternative care because it

enables an increased coverage and reach for they know the community and its challenges better than implementing organization staff.

- Ensuring high quality guidance, technical assistance, supervision, coaching and mentoring of Social Workers/field staff and other important team members engaging in interventions at community levels achieve sustainability of alternative care approach.

- Frequent trainings of Social Workers/field staff and measures to instil confidence on them to act as leaders, giving them space to express their views and support their opinion works beautifully to ensure continuity of the field level staff.

- In light of the high level of responsibilities shouldered on Social Mobilisers engaged in community based alternative care, implementing organization also needs to build rapport with local administrations to come with approaches of sharing responsibilities with these field staff.

Empower children to know about their rights and enable them to protect themselves creating safe space for children:

Organizations have to work with communities (including children, adolescents, their parents and other community-based institutions), local self-governments and people’s representatives to develop a safety net for children and adolescents to ensure their wellbeing and prevent them from falling into high-risk situations. Creation of safe space in the community and provision of service package designed for the children overall empowerment, promoting sports and entertainment, effective engagement with parents and the larger community, promoting needed life skills, required exposure, skill-building and career planning and linkage with relevant government services etc. will strengthen the preventive system for child protection.

(i) Learning in the Community and Service for the community: This suggests about formulating alternative pedagogies to support children who are first generation learners or drop outs from school. The pedagogy can help children in basic literacy, language reading and numeracy skills and can be imparted through learning centres based in the community. The centres can be a community property offered be the community people to the implementing organizations where children sit and learn from the developed pedagogy. Another way to provide learning support to children can be remedial educational support through activity-based innovative sessions to school children in the school premises or in the learning centres beyond the school hours. Research show that there are models across the world that allow students to advance in grade level while concurrently taking "bridging classes" and receiving extra help to make up deficiencies (Goodlad and Anderson, 1987; Slavin, 1990; Braddock and McPartland, 1992). Some schools form interdisciplinary teacher teams that allow scheduled time with small groups of "remedial" students. Other schools use peer tutoring or direct tutoring by teachers with during scheduled periods etc and in both the models, community based organizations can facilitate such remedial teaching in school premises or in the centre beyond school hours.

Apart from learning, participation in interventions designed by alternative care implementing organization like campaigns, awareness activities, recreational activities, experiential learning through exposure visits etc. enhance their attachments to neighbourhoods and gradually they develop a greater interest in local issues and a perceived competence that they can bring about change (Hamilton and Zeldin, 1987; National Task Force on Citizenship Education,1977; Calabrese and Shumer, 1986; Newmann, 1975).

(ii) Vocational Education, Employment and Training Programs: Children and youth who are not very keen for education enter into the labour market to support their families in early age, without adequate training or experience. This, many of the times leads to lack of motivation in job, under performance as well as loss of employment due to less skills. As identified in various studies that, one of the important strategies for community level intervention is to provide children and youth in the community opportunity of vocational exploration, skill trainings to ensure their employment. The vocational exploration28 component exposes students and community youth briefly to a variety of work settings to help them make decisions about future career directions or occupations. Through vocational exploration, particularly exposure trips to different workplaces (institution/organizations/service agency etc.), students gain information by watching the work being performed, talking to employees, and actually trying out work under direct supervision of school personnel or social worker/ field staff of NGO engaged in community based care implementation. Vocational training component places the student in various employment settings for work experiences. In this component, children and youth of the communities are linked to different institutions for skill based training either by the school authority or community based organizations implementing alternative care. The purpose of this component is to enable students to develop the competencies and behaviour needed to secure paid employment.

(iii) Developing Emotional Strengths and Life Skills: Young people from high-risk settings often need special services to confront the emotional pain and feelings of hopelessness that can interfere with positive development. The acquisition of social and emotional skills is associated with positive development of children, character education, healthy lifestyle behaviours, reduction in depression and anxiety, conduct disorders, violence, bullying, conflict and anger. As studies suggest, positive development includes strength-based approaches that promote healthy growth through supportive community environments

28 1999, Meeting the Needs of Youth with Disabilities: Handbook for Implementing Community-based Vocational Education Programs According to the Fair Labor Standards Act

and good relationships.29 The development program’s focus is on building relationships with caring adults that support engagement in challenging activities in which the youth are active participants, rather than solely the recipients of services or support.30 Life skills promote mental well-being and competence in young people as they face the realities of life. These skills support the development of foundational skills such as literacy, numeracy, digital skills and can also be utilized in several areas, such as gender equality in education, environmental education, peace education or education for development, livelihood and income generation, and for positive health promotion among others. Life skills empower young people to take positive action to participate in their communities, engage in continuous learning, protect themselves and promote health and positive social relationships.31

There are evidences where community programs are implementing interventions that facilitate collaborative peer group relations so that young people can learn from, and support, each other. Other programs are providing structured opportunities for young people to practice and develop the social, decision-making, and life skills necessary to succeed in high-risk settings.32 According to the same study, social and life-skills training programs share many features of current "social competence promotion" or "mental health promotion" programs. In general, the programs that demonstrate positive outcomes seek to help adolescents develop an overall sense of well-being, flexibility in dealing with stress, and a repertoire of behavioral skills needed to solve both interpersonal problems and problems of daily living.

Children from high-risk settings often need special services to confront the emotional pain and feelings of hopelessness that can interfere with positive development. Some community programs are implementing interventions that facilitate collaborative peer group relations so that young people can learn from, and support, each other. Other programs are providing structured opportunities for children to practice and develop the social, decision-making, and life skills necessary to succeed in high-risk settings. Studies33 suggest that impact of child sponsorship on formal schooling are substantially greater depending on the interventions undertaken by the sponsorship program for the community children. A much more comprehensive and holistic support structure, not only basic school provisions, but also

29 Bradshaw CP, Brown JS, Hamilton SF. Bridging positive youth development and mental health services for youth with serious behaviour problems. Child Youth Care Forum. 2008;37:209–26.

30 Bradshaw CP, Goldweber A, Fishbein D, Greenberg MT. Infusing developmental neuroscience into school-based preventive interventions: implications and future directions;Hamilton M, Hamilton S. The youth development handbook: Coming of age in American communities; Damon W, Bonk KC, Menon J. Youth sense of purpose. What are the key indicators of positive youth development?

31 UNICEF, Comprehensive Life Skills Framework

32 Losing Generations: Adolescents in High-Risk Settings

33 ibid

tutoring services, school fees, health education and basic healthcare, nurture and development opportunities create better impacts on formal schooling than support with basic provisions to sponsored children, mainly uniforms and school textbooks.

To summarise,

- Engagement of children and families while designing social services in the community to make sure that interventions are tailor-made to the individual situations and need of the beneficiaries.

- Enabling children to raise voices and express their views freely in the matters affecting them, which are to be taken into account in the decision making processes. Formation of children clubs/ forums is important to provide a platform discuss their problems and reimagine solutions.

- Enabling children to access life skills training, sports, recreational and leisure time activities, play and hobbies, cultural and social activities according to their choices.

- Incorporating life skills education interventions in the care and support programs that cover key protection issues such as sexual, gender-based and family violence and exploitative labour.

- Providing children with opportunities to advocate on their own behalf not only fulfils their human rights but also provides enables them to practice key life skills.

- Empowering children in alternative care through sponsorship with information about their rights and entitlements and relevant procedures concerning them; encourage children to use these mechanisms and build confidence in their own capacity to judge about the quality of services.

Strengthening families about their children’s rights and improve their capacities to take care and protection their children

Parents are the best source of support but in many families, parents are not positively involved in their children’s lives. In some cases, parents are absent or abusive whereas in many more cases, parents strive to be good parents, but lack the capacity or opportunity to be so. Even under the best of circumstances, it is difficult for parents to connect their children with necessary educational and service programs. In other cases, parental involvement may not be appropriate or desired by children who must arrange services on their own. Parents mentoring and additional supports becomes the essential element of any alternative care program management.

If parents are not supported, they have a diminished capacity to support their children (Bronfenbrenner, 1978). Studies say that many communities have implemented family support programs directed toward low-income parents. Such parents not only suffer from economic hardship, but also face additional challenges arising from the lack of personal networks friends, co-workers, and extended family members that contributes directly to emotional distress and continued isolation from the labour market (Cochran, 1990).

In case of migrated families, the cooperation between the authorities in the place of origin, transit and destination is vital for ensuring continuity of care. Cooperation between all levels of authority, effective communication between the service providers and families in the locality where they migrate is critical to ensure that services are delivered timely and without interruptions. Many states struggle to ensure continuity of care to the children and family supports after they migrate from particular locality where they were covered under community-based support. This happens due to lack of cooperation between the authority in the family’s place of origin and the authority in the destination place.

The most important intervention of family support/ family preservation program includes parent’s education towards teaching childcare skills coupled with developing their networks, training components to help parents enter the job market, counselling components, arranging child welfare, mental health services etc. Family preservation as a formal community based care process is not being widely practiced in India, however the government and NGOs carry out various parts of family preservation. Examples of such services include: preventative health work, vocational training/skill development, any type of sponsorship, food security/nutrition programmes and schemes, sexual education, self-help groups, physical abuse awareness, and substance abuse awareness. Psycho-social education of parents at risk has yielded positive results for preventing family separation and supporting the child’s development.

Often these services exist in isolation. In other words, specific services are done well with specific populations, but what is lacking is the idea of keeping a family together using a multidimensional approach. There is a need for more strategic and purposeful convergence of the above systems under the umbrella of family preservation.

To summarises,

- Educating children’s parents and caregivers in the families on issues like child development and parenting to enable them understand and respond better to the developmental needs of their children as well as equip them to deal with the problems and challenges of child-rearing.

- Strengthening the availability of social services for families and children; and providing them information of the availabilities of such services and encouraging them to access the services.

- Rapport building with service delivery authorities encouraging early interventions to the need of families by social service providers like early childhood care in AWC, support from doctors/midwives, day care staff etc. Social workers to visit families to ensure they receive social services

- Taking effective measures to support families with problems of alcohol, drug or substance abuse etc and link families for proper treatment arrangements available in the community

- Taking measures to follow up cases of child abuse that has happened or suspected to happen in the families involving police unit

- Building effective connections of social services with local networks of care and protection, such as, placing social workers or psychologist in schools, hospitals etc.

- Strengthening family’s livelihood and providing alternative livelihood options to increase household income and eliminate parents’ stress associated with not being able to meet their children’s basic needs. For example, linking for cash transfer benefits, material assistance, education & health sponsorship arrangement, direct subsidies, setting up savings groups; facilitating access to small loans through lending groups etc.

- Ensuring effective communication and cooperation between local authorities and service providers to support migrated families for continuity of child protection

Community mobilization to own the care interventions and empower them with increased capabilities to care for and protect children in the community:

Community based interventions not only include family support programs but also include programs to strengthen neighbourhood to benefit children and families from entire community. There is historical evidence indicating that sustained change occurs most readily when local residents invest themselves and their resources in the effort (Cochran, 1990; McKnight and Kretzman, 1992; Davies, 1991). Interactions with various organizations as part of this study suggests that community mobilization involve multi-faceted actions starting from community organizing, collaboration with existing service deliveries, implementation of need based interventions at community levels and involvement of families in the school affairs.

Community organizing efforts start with networking, coalition building, resource mobilising. For example, provision of public amenities through networking with government that can help poor families, or direct support to families in terms of child care, after school programs, or program for youth people in the community who are seen as the ‘change agent’ for their own neighbourhood. Secondly, collaboration between community based organization and state entities/local authorities in providing different services to community people helps in mobilising neighbourhood and gaining trust of the community. For example, bringing government authorities to impart skill trainings for community people or linking families to different government schemes like housing, insurance, cash transfers etc. Collaboration has long been the mechanism for delivering employment and training services, and in recent years’ similar programs have successfully delivered youth-oriented services traditionally provided by the police, justice system, social services, and health and mental health agencies (Spergel, 1976; Sauber, 1983; Eisenhower Foundation, 1990). Thirdly, the need-based implementation of different interventions at community, which cannot be implemented through the existing service delivery but with community-based organization, with supports from community residents and volunteers.

Community will automatically gain trust on the organizations if very less cost-based interventions gets implemented and shows outcomes. For example, group counselling, lifeskills training, substance abuse education, HIV awareness campaign, free tutoring by volunteers, providing services for elders, community need assessment or surveys have proved to be important trust-building intervention for the organizations working in the communities. Another approach can be the public health approach to child protection in country like India, that can work at all levels of the ecological model of maltreatment including society, neighbourhood, family, parent and child to address the risk factors (Sidebotham, 2001)

Another important coalition should be with schools since schools are the integral part of the community. Families’ involvement in all phases of schooling from governance to the instructional process provides direct mechanisms of parent empowerment. Studies suggest various means to involve with schools by families, like, meeting on regular basis between parents and teachers to take decisions on matters ensuring academic and social needs of all students are explicitly addressed in all school activities; participatory inquiries among stakeholders to identify major barriers to quality education in school and develop plans to address issues.

Most practitioners see the recognition of racial and ethnic differences, as well as the promotion of open dialogue and expression regarding differences, as necessary prerequisites to instilling mutual respect among people in the community, especially children. An example is the SEED (Students Educating Each Other about Discrimination) project in Michigan, USA that was designed and implemented using group discussion to train high school students to serve as role models and change agents who challenge racism (Polakow-Suransky and Ulaby, 1990). Interventions and activity sessions in with community members incorporating various cultural and ethnic histories and traditions etc. promotes active participation of community, cooperation, and problem solving by the members.

To summarise,

- Training and orientation of local leaders and key community stakeholders on children’s rights and on how to prevent, identify and respond to child abuse, neglect and exploitation

- Alternative care in community through child sponsorship is associated with greater levels of community leadership and to make any community level intervention self-sustained, "Community Leaders" are to be correlated with program participation and program eligibility.

- Social workers engaged in community based alternative care should represent all population groups with relevant linguistic, cultural and religious backgrounds for better social inclusion and non-discrimination across all population groups

- Sensitizing and awareness building of community people coupled with less-cost intensive direct services for the development of overall community help community based care implementing organizations to gain trust of community people.

- Networking with local authorities to enable community people to access the existing social services, benefits and schemes that they are entitled to would build their consensus about their rights and in return gain their trusts.

- Building strategic partnerships with school administrations and teachers and training them to support children at risk is necessary to make the alternative care to children as well as overall community development smooth, efficient and sustainable

Advocacy with the government and support them in strengthening existing child care and protection mechanisms

State-specific guidelines on alternative care mechanisms need to be supplemented with micro-level protocols for ensuring effective integration of children in alternative family care mechanisms, to mitigate any risk and uncertainty in following such processes. In this regard, converging with government machineries, advocacy with local government, and supporting them in strengthening the existing child protection mechanisms stands critical. Support for a government to strengthen national alternative care system and child protection programs should be based on local needs and priorities. These needs and priorities can be identified through a needs assessments or situation analysis. Within the current policy framework in India, such services and programming can be promoted by introducing the facilitators at the panchayat/ward level and leveraging resources from relevant government departments through strong advocacy needs to be considered as one of the options for ensuring such facilitation. Package of services at the community level can be developed facilitating intersectoral convergence mechanism within the government and engagement of private sectors. This can help in implementing child friendly services in the community level. As identified by various studies, the definitive accountability to protect the children of a homeland lies with the Government. By ratifying the international and national instruments, the Central Government should take appropriate measures in child protection.34

Advocacy with state and local government stands important as in additional to follow central level guidelines, state need to take preventive measures to ensure a family for each child. As discussed earlier, apart from NGO’s/ community based alternative care is although implementing organization’s responsibility, it should be Government’s priority as well to take preventive measures like family strengthening /family support through various initiatives and programmes to cater to the needs of these children.

To summarise,

34 Rajagiri Journal of Social Development Volume 11, Number 1, June 2019; Alternative care in India- Issues and Prospects

- Strong advocacy at all levels of government to strengthen existing child protection mechanisms within the community where children stay. This should involve making available technical advice and guidance from the central level, equitable budget allocation to the local levels for family support, child protection and alternative care

- Strengthen communication between the central, regional and local levels of the public administration, ensuring opportunities for social workers/ field staff in community levels to communicate their recommendations to the policy makers.

- Supports to local authority in the community by Community based alternative care implementing organization to develop and evaluate innovative solutions in family support, child protection and alternative care.

- Advocacy with local government for ensuring its legal authority to protect children in informal family based care in community.

- Sensitizing and training local government in the communities to recognize signs of abuse, identify vulnerable children, and respond to and refer violations. Community interventions can also include collaboration of community people and local government to establish referral system for legal follow up of child protection violations incidences in families or community.

ANNEXURES

Annexure 1: Format for Preparation Of Home Study Report (ICPS Guideline)

Name of Child:

(a) Identifying Information:

Details of Father:

Name of Father:

UID number, if available:

Age:

Address:

District:

Educational Qualifications of Father:

Financial Situation:

Occupation:

Health History: Is father under any treatment? If so, please give details

Details of Mother:

Name of Mother:

UID number, if available:

Age:

Address:

District:

Educational Qualifications of Mother:

Financial Situation: (Is Mother currently employed? If so, what is approximate income? If not employed, since when?)

Occupation:

Health History: Is Mother under any treatment? If so, please give details

(b) Details of other children and family members

Name and age of other siblings (if any):

Current relationship between the parents and children, if any; Details of other family members:

Home and Neighborhood:

Is the place of residence of family safe and suitable for the child? Are the sanitation facilities adequate?

(d) Is there a School in the neighbourhood?

-Private or Government?

-Distance to School?

(e) Are there any health facilities available in the neighbourhood? Eg. PHC?

(f) Why did parents place child in the institution? Or/ How did child reach/enter institutional care?

(g) Year when parents sent child to institution.

(h) For how long was child in the institution?/ Number of years that child was in the institution?

(i) Any other observation/comment…………………………………

Annexure 2: Undertaking by The Parent To Whom Child Is Restored (ICPS Guideline)

I ___________________________________________ resident of House no. _________ Street

_____________ Village/Town __________________ District ___________________ State ______________ do hereby declare that I am willing to take charge of (name of the child)

_____________________________________ Aged _______ under the orders of the Child Welfare Committee as per the Sponsorship

Programme______________________________ subject to the following terms and conditions:

(i) If his/her conduct is unsatisfactory I shall at once inform the Committee.

(ii) I shall do my best for the welfare and education of the said child as long as he/ she remains in my charge and shall make proper provision for his/her maintenance.

(iii) In the event of his/her illness, he/she shall have proper medical attention in the nearest hospital.

(iv) I agree to adhere to the conditions of the sponsorship programme

(v) I undertake to produce him/her before the competent authority as and when required.

Date this ………………day of ………………..

Signature

Signature and address of witness (es)

(Signed)

Annexure 3: Indicators of vulnerability in Community Vulnerability Assessment (CVA)

Areas Indicators to be checked

Standard of living and Economic security

Food security

Health security

Environmental security

- House types and amenities (house sonstruction condition, rented/own, number of rooms against family members, drinking water source, kitchen and sanitation facility, ventilation/lighting conditions etc.)

- Family access to utilities (electricity, gas, etc)

- Family status (nuclear, joint family, single parents)

- Family income

- Literacy levels

- Educational status

- Employment program access

- Unemployment and duration

- Previous Work experiences

- Access to government schemes/ benefits

- Able to make own daily living and food arrangements

- Produce own food in own land/farming/cattle

- Having land or assets

- Family access to hygiene items

- Availability and functioning of PHCs

- Insurance coverage accessed by families

- Malnutrition in community including children

- Long term diseases in surveyed families including children such as respiratory infections, asthma, cancer, allergies, heart ailment, HIV etc.

- Disabilities

- Mental health issues in surveyed families including children

- Walter, air pollution status

- Noise pollution status

- Exposure to degraded soil/land causing infertility of land

- Exposure to hazardous working conditions

- School in polluted areas

- Faced Disasters in recent years

Personal and Political security

- Migration status (families including children)

- Domestic violence

- Crime, terrorism in recenbt years

- Exploitations including child labour, early marriage - Religious tensions

- Political turmoil in receent years

Annexure 4: Consent form sample for creating CHILD CLUB/FORUM

Hello, I am ____________________________ (name of interviewer). I am part of the team from (organization’s name) and we are implanting some activities like, learning centres, vocational trainings, campaigns, to improve the life children in this community. The purpose our approach is also to talk to the government and demand to plan better for services for the needy children.

We understand that children know their problems and problems of other children in the community better. We want them to form a children club/forum in this community, where they can get opportunity to talk freely about their problems and understand what other children are facing. Children of the club will meet every week to discuss their problem which we will note down to plan further activity.

The purpose of this Consent form is to ask for your permission for the child to be part of the Forum. If you agree we will ask you to tick below and take your signature in the form.

We will not use any child’s name in any report. We will not be giving the child any payment or reward. The child may not benefit directly but it will help the government to learn more about different ways of providing care and support services to the needy children.

Do you have any questions? (Pause for answer and answer his/her questions) Can I proceed?

Parent’s statement: I agree to let my child to be part of CHILD CLUB/FORUM. I have understood the verbal explanation and what will be required of the child if the child be part of the club. I understand that at any time, I can withdraw the child. My questions concerning the study have been answered by the interviewer.

Yes No

Signature of parent of the child: _____________________ Date: ______________

________________________ Thumb print of parent of the child (if s/he prefers this option)

Annexure

5: Introduction and Consent form sample for CVA

Hello, I am ____________________________

(name of the interviewer) and I am working with (name of the organization). Our organization works for (approach of the organization). We are conducting a survey to know more about the community. We would appreciate if you participate in the survey. The survey will take approximately 30 to 45 minute.

The information you will provide to us will be very useful for planning interventions for the community that will be beneficial for community members, particularly vulnerable children who needs services. By vulnerability, we mean children who are at risk of suffering significant harm for one reason or another.

As part of the survey, we would ask you some questions about your household and about availability of services in the community. All the answers you give will be confidential. If you do not wish to answer any question, let me know and I will move to the next question.

At this time do you want to ask me anything about the survey? Yes/No (If yes, pause and respond to the question)

May I begin the interview now? Yes/No

Signature of Interviewer

Date

Annexure 6: Introduction and Consent form sample for interview with family (head of the household or women member)

Hello, I am (name of the interviewer) and I am working with (name of the organization). Our organization works for (approach of the organization). We are interviewing head of the family or caregivers in this community to find out the family’s situations and needs for providing care to children and information about children.

The information you will provide to us will be very useful for planning interventions for the vulnerable children who needs services. By vulnerability, we mean children who are at risk of suffering significant harm for one reason or another.

If you are primary care giver and head of the family, providing care to children? I would like to interview the person most responsible for giving care to needy children in this family. Please let me know if it is you or it is someone else I need to talk to more about the children.

At this time do you want to ask me anything about the survey? Yes/No (If yes, pause and respond to the question)

May I begin the interview now? Yes/No

Signature of Interviewer Date

GLOSSERY

CBC Community Based Care

CBCP Community-Based Child Protection

CBCPM Community Based Child Protection Mechanisms

CCDA Child-centered Community Development Approach

FAQ Frequently asked questions

UN United Nations

FGD Focused Group Discussions

NGO Non-Governmental Organization

NCPCR National Commission for Protection of Child Rights

CCI Child Care Institutions

RHP Rainbow Homes Program

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

ECCD Early Childhood Care and Development

CWSN Children with Special Needs

ICPS Integrated Child Protection Scheme

UNICEF United Nations Children's Fund

GOI Govt of India

CIDC Children in especially difficult circumstances

UNECAP United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

UNCRC National Commission for Protection of Child Rights

UNGA United Nations General Assembly

CWC Child Welfare Committee

JJB Juvenile Justice Board

NPAC National Plan of Action for Children

NPC National Policy of Children

JJA Juvenile Justice Act

MWCD Ministry of Woman and Child Development

SSA Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan

DCPU/DCPO District Child Protection Unit/ District Child Protection Officer

DCPC District Child Protection Committee

PO(IC)/ PO(NIC) Protection Officer-Institutional Care / Protection Officer-NonInstitutional Care

CARA Central Adoption Resource Authority

SCPS State Child Protection Society

SFCAC Sponsorship and Foster Care Approval Committee

ISC India Sponsorship Committee

CASP Community Aid and Sponsorship Programme

HPPI Humana People to People India

LTE Letter Translation Exchange

CSR Corporate Social

SCI

REFERENCES

Reports & Articles

❖ 2016, Terre des hommes Foundation; Frequently asked questions on Alternative Care for Children in India: An overview of concepts and processes

❖ EPW, Vol. 56, Issue No. 16, 17 Apr, 2021, Tuhina Sharma, Alternative Care for Children: A Case for Foster Care

❖ 2017, Udayan Care, Standards of Care in Child Care Institutions

❖ Third/fourth report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (2012), ch. 4, para. 40

❖ Extract from the Gazatte of India – Part I, dated 11 May 2011, MINISTRY OF WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT (June 9, 2021, 11:46 AM)

❖ Impact Report, 2018, Child Fund India

❖ CASP Annual Report 2019-20

❖ Changing lives – an analysis of Plan International’s child sponsorship data

❖ Plan India Annual Report 2019-20

❖ A tool for selection of children in World Vision child sponsorship

❖ Family Support and Alternative Care, The Baltic Sea States Regional Report 2015

❖ 1999, Meeting the Needs of Youth with Disabilities: Handbook for Implementing Community-based Vocational Education Programs According to the Fair Labor Standards Act

❖ Bradshaw CP, Brown JS, Hamilton SF. Bridging positive youth development and mental health services for youth with serious behaviour problems. Child Youth Care Forum. 2008;37:209–26.

❖ Bradshaw CP, Goldweber A, Fishbein D, Greenberg MT. Infusing developmental neuroscience into school-based preventive interventions: implications and future directions;Hamilton M, Hamilton S. The youth development handbook: Coming of age in American communities; Damon W, Bonk KC, Menon J. Youth sense of purpose. What are the key indicators of positive youth development?

❖ UNICEF, Comprehensive Life Skills Framework

❖ Losing Generations: Adolescents in High-Risk Settings

❖ Rajagiri Journal of Social Development Volume 11, Number 1, June 2019 ; Alternative care in India- Issues and Prospects

Internet Sources

❖ https://bettercarenetwork.org/library/the-continuum-of-care/community-based-caremechanisms

❖ http://cara.nic.in/PDF/JJ%20act%202015.pdf

❖ http://cara.nic.in/PDF/english%20model%20rule.pdf

❖ https://wcd.nic.in/sites/default/files/npcenglish08072013_0.pdf

❖ http://cara.nic.in/pdf/revised%20icps%20scheme.pdf

❖ https://childfundinternational.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/letter-translation-exchangein-sri-lanka/

❖ https://indiasponsorship.org/about-us/our-approach/

❖ https://www.wvi.org/sites/default/files/FINAL%20CSR%20Phase%202%20Sponsor%20Tr ansformation%20Report.pdf

❖ https://www.hkf.ind.in/WhoWeAre/OrganizationProfile#collapseThree

Legal Documents

❖ The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989

❖ The United Nations Guideline on the Alternative Care of Children, 2009

❖ Juvenile Justice (care and protection of children) Act 2015

❖ Juvenile Justice Rules, 2016

❖ Integrated Child Protection Scheme, 2009

About Rainbow Homes Program

TheRainbowHomesProgramaimstoprotect, care for, educate and empower our most disadvantaged children. These include children who live on city streets; orphaned, abandoned, and violence-affected children; working children; children of farmer – suicide and starvationfamilies; and children of sex workers. We strive to ensure that these childrenaccesstheirrightsinloving,openand safe residential care homes in government schoolsand buildings;andforthem to growinto happy,responsible and caring citizens.

RAINBOW HOMES PROGRAM

Vjaya Lakshmi Avenue

Flat No: 2&3, H. No. :1-3-183/40/21/53, Road Number: 5, P&T colony, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad -500080

Ph: 040- 27660017

Website: www.rainbowhome.in