Generations at stake: Need for investing in family-based solutions for vulnerable children in India

Giving has been an integral part of India’s culture. Many of us experience it quite early on when we celebrate our birthdays or other special occasions at orphanages or child care institutions (CCIs). While giving to orphanages has been the traditional and one of the oldest ways of engaging in philanthropy, we need to shift our focus towards supporting systems and approaches that address the root causes of child vulnerability,spearhead a movement to shift care reform priorities to prevent separation from family and subsequent institutionalization of children, and invest in research and innovative interventions that build upon the existing efforts by the government and civil society.

According to the Indian National Policy for Children 2013, “All children have the right to grow in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love, and understanding.” There is a global and national consensus that children can achieve holistic development and mental well-being only in a family and related setup. Research on the institutionalization of children claims that 80% of institutionalized children are below the mean on relevant indicators relating to the delayed brain and cognitive development, 57% of institutionalized children exhibit greater psychological issues, as opposed to only 15% otherwise and staff members often resort to dangerous measures that put the child at a higher risk of future criminal activity according to Lumos Global Research.

A ray of hope

To act on the root causes of child vulnerability in India, there is a need for programs that work as a collective, with on-ground interventions covering rural as well as urban locations, coupled with interventions that strengthen the ecosystem with data, evidence, narrative change, and advocacy. State-based models focused on systems strengthening, that lead to replicable solutions need to involve allied sectors, keeping the child at the center, and leverage resources and structures available or mandated by policy. The philanthropic community can have a multi-fold impact by supporting such collective initiatives, and championing the cause to wider networks.

The work is complex and we have a long way to go in overcoming execution challenges. We need to disproportionately focus on enabling families and communities to provide nurturing environments for their children and building the capacities of child protection actors to undertake all efforts necessary to provide family-based care for children entering the system based on the five priorities for action:

Support families and existing community-based safety nets to create, monitor, and sustain an enabling environment for the well-being and development of every child. Families in vulnerable situations must be supported more meaningfully in multiple ways, especially in a post-pandemic world, to create a safe and thriving environment for their children within their homes and communities.

Equip nodal points within the child protection system with the knowledge, narratives, networks, tools, and resources to understand individual contexts and needs, and strengthen gatekeeping across the child protection system ensuring that institutionalization is deployed as the last resort.

Establish culturally relevant, local models of family-based care to strengthen and augment family-based care approaches such as kinship care, foster care, and sponsorship programs as an alternative to institutionalization. With several government and non-profit pilots and studies underway, there is a need to document, test feasibility, and draw collective learnings to strengthen and mainstream culturally relevant family-based alternative care.

Strengthen aftercare support to care leavers to ensure meaningful mainstreaming within society. This calls for emphasizing the need for extended support this cohort requires, enhancing programming and budgets, and driving efforts to connect them to the social security net. Most importantly, more data and knowledge of the journeys and life outcomes of care leavers need to be used to inform future investment and programming.

Build and collectivize the ecosystem surrounding the child to foster an inclusive and supportive environment to ensure positive life outcomes for children. Investing in data and evidence generation, narrative change towards preventable strategies, documentation, dissemination, and amplification of good on-ground practices, and engaging more funding through collective action will be key in shifting the focus from a largely curative approach to a preventive one.

An opportunity to transform the overburdened Indian child protection system

Globally, it is estimated that India has the third-largest number of children living in institutions or residential care — more than 3,50,000 children are housed in over 9,500 CCIs in India, however, 80- 90% of these children have at least one living parent. With approximately 172M children at risk, India is estimated to have nearly 35M children in need of care and protection. Research claims that only 26% of CCIs have individual care plans in place, mandated by the Juvenile Justice Act, 64% of CCIs are unregistered under the JJ Act, and hence are unmonitored and only 42% of the 9500 childcare institutions receive government funds.

Emerging evidence from the ground suggests that young people leaving institutions in India are one of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in society. When children who spend their entire childhoods in institutional care become adults, they lack the skills and support needed to become independent, have less income, are more likely to be young parents, experience mental health issues, be marginalized, isolated, and sometimes in conflict with the law, thereby becoming a part of the vicious intergenerational cycle of vulnerabilities. Therefore, even the best of institutions cannot substitute for the care a family can provide a child.

Characterized by an elaborate legal and policy framework, articulating sound intent, and a thick population of structures and services, the child protection system in India is concentrated at the state and district levels. It seldom reaches the block and village level including their urban equivalents where families and children reside. So far, the system has adopted a top-down approach, that is tilted towards curative interventions instead of preventive ones.

There can be no doubt that our child protection system needs to be turned on its head. The major thrust must be towards preventive interventions for all children, with children themselves, their families, and communities at the helm of dialogue and action. Creating sustainable change will require longer-term and patient capital from the funding community. Governments, multilateral organizations, funders, NGOs, and community-based organizations in India must do more, and do more urgently and collectively, to make the vision of a family for every child in India, a reality.

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