Effective Housing Supports: Different Living Arrangements for YAs leaving care

younger children, teach them dancing, yoga or share their experiences of independent living with the younger children.

EFFECTIvE HouSInG SuPPoRTS: DIFFEREnT LIvInG ARRAnGEMEnTS FoR YAS LEAvInG CARE

Securing suitable accommodations for young people has been a major concern for the care staff across organizations. The accommodation options available to care leavers vary between local areas for reasons such as the availability, cost, and suitability of different living arrangements. As per the JJ Act, Model rules and Integrated Child Protection Scheme, YAs leaving are the responsibilities of States and after care funds to be provided by the States to place YAs on attaining 18 years in community group housing, a temporary residential arrangement for a group of 6-8 young persons for temporary period of time before moving to a place of their own on saving sufficient amount through their income.

Types of housing assistance provided by the sample organizations are i) Aftercare housing under After Care Program support under ICPS and ii) Independent housing with financial supports from organizations or independent contributions. This includes government’s social welfare hostels, working women hostels/ swadhar homes at free of cost, private college hostel with costs covered under course fees funded by organizations as well as private hostels, paying guests accommodations, mess and private rented buildings either funded by either organizations or covered by contributions of YAs into jobs. Whilst after care centres/ transitional homes or Group Homes have care leavers with staff to stay with YAs as a support in their living, independent living arrangements do not provide direct care staff from the organizations to stay with them. Care leavers in private rented building (group living accommodations), particularly are completely on their own whereas care leavers in hostels or mess have some sorts of supports of Wardens/Supervisors for their daily living.

The YAs leaving care face many challenges in staying in different housing facilities and care givers (future focal team of Rainbow Homes as well as care staff of sample organizations) struggles to support them to do so. Interviews with young adults transited from Rainbow Homes as well as stakeholders in sample organizations in the study suggest that some of them had experienced challenges in their different living spaces. For example, as evident in the report, there were number of barriers preventing young adults in accessing accommodations in private rented buildings for living in groups, as most of the landlords were not ready to give out to the YAs, particularly to the girls mainly as they are care leavers. Landlords were apprehensive about girls continuing rents and were suspicious about the girls’ point of reference, in case the girls do mischiefs and run away. Some YAs of Rainbow Homes had cooperative landlords helping them showing nearby markets to get things in cheaper rate or providing some household products, identifying their challenges in new set ups and keeping state team

Types of living arrangements in sample organizations

Rainbow Homes: Within families, Private college hostels, Social Welfare Hostels, Working women hostels, mess, rented accommodation for group living SBT: Within families, Private rented buildings, mess, government and private hostel Udayan Care: After care transition home, group or scattered site housing, Social Welfare

Hostels, College Hostels, Rented buildings,

Women Welfare Hostels, Mess Mahima India: After care unit under ICPS grants, Group Homes for YAs over 21 years, government’s working women hostel/swadhar homes, social welfare/private hostels Baale Mane Trust: Paying Guest accommodations Don Bosco, Bangalore, Hyderabad,

Howrah: After Care Centres, Paying Guest

Accommodations, private rented rooms SOS Children’s Village, Bangalore: Paying

Guest accommodations

informed so that care staff could intervene. However, the study revealed that most of the YAs in private rented building struggled with high electricity or water bills charged by landlords, stopping of water supplies, blaming YAs for any breakage or leakage in the apartments, despite other tenants lived in the apartments. Some young adults were placed in hostels, which made them feel isolated and lonely or scared as they had to stay with strangers of different mind-set as well as dealt with unknown people in the neighbourhood. Some transited YAs interviewed in the study reported feeling unsafe in their local area and their post care living spaces due to factors such as, areas with reputation in political violence or hostels with very a smaller number of residents etc.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

P Home integration with supports- Family strengthening Social policy and child welfare practice should aim to help families remain together, promote family reunification or legally secure so that children after transition can be placed with the families. In situations where young care leavers have families and they have healthy relationships with family and families are able to take care of them, YAs after 18 can be placed within the families after thorough assessments of the risk factors in placing in families, the families’ capabilities and evaluations by the Child Welfare Committees. Some of the sample organizations mentioned about family strengthening program being taken up before placing care leavers into the families, and supporting the children in terms of education, college fees or vocational courses fees. Apart from supporting children with the families, the aspects of family strengthening include sensitizing the families, empowering women of the families of care leavers with the capacity to protect and care for their children and help them become self-reliant.

As part of family strengthening and enhancing livelihoods of the families of care leavers, concrete steps can be taken to link the families with existing Government housing schemes. Two important schemes can be brought under the aftercare program for children leaving care, such as, i) Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (PMGY) that extends benefits to rural poor living Below the Poverty Line and ii) Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY) that offers sustainable and affordable housing to individuals and families belonging to the economically challenged section of society.

P Semi-regulated accommodations: Government and

private hostels, Mess and PG accommodations

YAs living in hostels, teach YAs to live independently along with strangers of similar age group, how to customize themselves with the new environment, new people of about the age they are. The study suggests that young care leavers in hostel placements learn various self-management techniques such as time management, being more disciplined, being motivated to study in the absence of responsibilities of cooking, cleaning etc, despite hurdles like financial crises, adjustment issues, personal helplessness, loneliness because of non-mingling inmates, poor quality meals, unhygienic atmosphere etc. Care leavers into vocational or academic courses can be placed into hostels on attaining maturity age groups as the accommodations are either free or cost-effective, and the YAs can concentrate on education in the absence of any responsibility of household chores that are taken care of by the managements.

P Supported Group living arrangements: Youth

Homes/Hostels

The sample YAs had mixed views on mentored vis a vis non-mentored living arrangement. The study shows struggles of YAs in any unsupported and unguided living arrangements (particularly group living) in the absence of practical life skills. It has been seen that YAs under mentorship of a care staff have done much better in coping with the initial struggles of independent living. For example, young care leavers from Rainbow Homes, Delhi had Mentor/ Living supervisor who stayed with the newly transited care leavers till evening every day, whose advice and guidance helped them learn efficient money managements, to live in harmony, to be more understanding and cooperative with others. Another groups of care leavers mentioned that group living with a caring and supportive Mentor would be helpful to get guidance on many things, but they

would never be able to deal with real life challenges and learn things from mistakes. However, the overall understanding as reflected from the interviews with care leavers was giving more weightage to mentored living for initial few months after transition from care.

The practitioners of sample NGOs shared their own view about the types of housing supports to be provided to the YAs leaving care, in the absence of any clear guidelines on accommodation arrangements for these YAs who do not have families to be reintegrated into. However, all had agreement that care leavers need to be given guided accommodation supports for at least initial 6 months on transitioning from care system.

Youth Homes/Hostels with a Mentor staff

Some of the practitioners dealing with after care services pointed out that given the background of care leavers from CCIs, placing them in hostels or mess run by managements other than the particular organizations the care leavers transit from, would be more challenging for them to cope up as they would struggle to stay among unknown faces. Establishing city wise Supported Youth Home/Hostels run by Rainbow Homes Program to place newly transited YAs on attaining maturity (15-20 care leavers in one set up) would be stepping stone, before they move to more independent accommodations like staying in groups in private rented accommodations. Such homes/hostels would be better managed by the care leavers themselves, if an adult mentor stay with them to provide friendly guidance or help them to manage conflicts etc. Such arrangements would not interfere into care leavers privacy but would definitely help them overcome the stress that YAs face during their independent living stage.

P Transition from supported group living to independent

group living

The study suggests that supported living for at least some period of time after moving away from care institutions would help YAs as the initial challenges faced by the children going directly in different living arrangements, especially independent group living in private rented building can be addressed. If YAs are placed directly in group living arrangements to live on their own with all responsibilities being shared, they get puzzled, since they do not learn many practical life skills in the CCIs, which made them difficult to manage all alone in GL arrangements. Such Youth Home/Hostel can be Transition homes for 18+ children from other CCIs as well before they are moved to any other living arrangements. Few YAs might consider the mentored

Pros and Cons of Mentored living

Pros:

P Emotional support in times of depression and someone to whom YAs can ventilate. P Better safety and security, especially for girls P Better financial management and household chores P Younger generations in CCIs in much mentally secured position seeing the youth home model. P Good platform to socialise as many other girls/ boys from different homes and different organizations can be placed in youth hostels

Cons:

P Feeling of restrictions as in CCIs P Mentor/Supervising Staff acting like instructor P Mentor/Supervising staff intruding into care leavers’ privacy P Mentors imposing own decision on care leavers P Strict rules and CCI like routines in which care leavers might feel uncomfortable While doing full time jobs, care leavers can switch to any unsupported and more independent group living arrangements because they do not have to concentrate on education after coming back from work and hence would be ready to take as much responsibilities of households chores. Practitioners in sample organizations

opinions of care leavers on supported youth homes

While most of the YAs in the study sample agreed of the requirements of mentored living arrangements in initial few months after transition from Care Institutions, some pointed out specificity of supported youth homes.

The guided/ mentored Youth homes/ hostels should not have strict rules and regulations like CCIs in terms of going out and returning to hostels, because care leavers into job might not be able to come on stipulated time and that should not be regarded as non-adherence of rule. The adult Mentor should not be dominating, since care leavers are matured enough to have independence to manage their lives. The adult mentor just for guidance would make care leavers independent. Decision making support and financial management support would help care leavers to ease with the struggles of initial periods after transition. Individual tantrums of members on particular food etc would not be considered which would help care leavers learn adjusting to life on their own. Care leavers need to abide by the hostel routine which brings discipline among the care leavers who are otherwise lazy and disobey routine in independent living. Guidelines on how much time to spend over phone and a scheduled timing to switch off Wi-Fi/ broadband connections so that no care leavers are allowed internet surfing in the night. This would not hamper sleep timings of care leavers Certain entertainment activities such as TV, internet connection and a library with collection of academic and non-academic books.

opinions of stakeholders on supported youth homes

A balance between the freedoms as well as certain rules not hampering the YAs’ independence in supported Youth Home/Hostel would make YAs leaving care more discipline. There is no control over going out and coming back in independent group living arrangements and it is nearly impossible to maintain disciplines in unguided living. Also, stricter rules would never be helpful because ‘more you try to bind them, more they will be indiscipline’. There are high chances of groupism in independent living without Mentors and a delayed follow up would show only grievances from the children despite efforts from care staff, children would never try to become independent. However, a mentor watching the behavior of girls in groups, guiding and hand holding to mitigate the difficulties they face without controlling their independence would slowly make YAs understand their responsibilities. Youth Homes/Hostels with a residential Mentor with participative management space would help newly transited YAs to gain confidence, learn new household skills, manage the household economies well, since

YAs would not like close monitoring from or stricter rules after entering maturity. Such mentoring would only work with establishment of a strong bonding between Mentors who are residential and YAs. Keeping on changing the Mentors would loosen that bonding and hence, Mentors need to be empathetic and dedicated to make the model successful. Placing transited YAs into mentored Youth Homes/Hostel means moving from one hostel set up to another hostel set up, despite supported living considered to be the effective solution for newly transited YAs because going straight from care to living independently would often be too big a step for YAs. However, management of such youth homes/hostels should be under close monitoring of the organizations of the