Children under foster care show progress

BANGALORE: Releasing the research report on accessibility and impact of sponsorship as an alternative care provision for children, under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000, Nina Nayak, chairperson of Karnataka State Commission for Child Rights (KSCPCR) stressed the need to take up more initiatives to identify foster families as a holistic care option for children, for which sponsorship support can be provided.She said, “The initiative requires coordination between various departments and NGOs, in order to ensure effective functioning and implementation of the programme, especially at the district level.”The research, commissioned by KSCPCR, was conducted by Every Child India, an NGO, during 2010-11. Detailing about the project, Payal Saksena, manager of Advocacy and Communication, Every Child India, said, “We conducted  the study in three districts— Mysore, Bagalkote and Bangalore Urban.“Around 41 sponsored children, 183 non-sponsored children, their parents, anganwadi workers, gram panchayat members and district administration heads were our main informants during the study.”As per the sponsorship support programme, a child is provided `250-750 per month over a period of three years.“During the course of study we found that the sponsored children under this scheme did not drop out of schools. Hence, instead of three years, the support needs to be made available to vulnerable children up to the age of 18,” she added.Need for generating large scale awareness among families, need for reviewing of sponsorship scheme and the budgetary allocation and co-ordination with various departments are few of the recommendations made after the research study.Meanwhile, Shashikala, project director-ICPS, Directorate of Women and Child Welfare explained how this project could be extended to a larger mass, for which public-private partnership was required.“We have also made a presentation regarding the study to the Directorate of Women and Child Welfare about a few weeks ago and have got good response. In addition, all the discussions held today, along with the recommendations will be consolidated and presented to the Directorate soon,” she said.