Family and Child Welfare

Family and Child Welfare 3 (3+0)

Lesson 48 : Development Schemes for Women

Non-institutional services

• The new approach to child welfare also believes that the institution can not be a substitute for the individualized care that a family can provide.
• This approach recognizes that the right to a family encompasses that all child welfare activities should ensure that the physical, social, emotional and educational needs of the child are met in a secure nurturing family environment.
• The primary focus of institutional intervention lies in strengthening of the family, prevention of family disintegration and abandonment of children.
• These could take the form of foster care, sponsorship, Juvenile Service Bureaus, Family support and other community based services.

Types of Non-institutional Services

1. Juvenile service bureaus
   1. This is a programme of non institutional services which aims at the prevention of juvenile delinquency in urban slums by providing health, recreation through play centres.
   2. Juvenile Service Bureaus extend guidance and counseling services to the children in slums and schools particularly those with psychological and social problems.
2. Adoption
   • Adoption is a recognized best way for providing a substitute family for an abandoned, orphaned child deprived of love, care and affection of parents.
   • To promote this cause, the department has established an Adoption Cell to co-ordinate, develop and regulate activities relating to adoption.
3. Child Line Services
   1. A programme initiated by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, aims to build partnership between NGOs and society by responding to children in distress and who are in need of care and protection.
   2. It provides 24 hours emergency phone service for children in difficult circumstances.
   3. The main objective of the child line services is to help children in distress by calling a Toll Free No. 1098.
   4. The Bangalore City Child Line has been launched with the help of Bangalore Telecom Department on 9th May 2002. NIMHANS, Bangalore has been identified as a nodal agency.
   5. The city is divided into 3 zones and operated by 3 collaborative voluntary agencies namely APSA, BOSCO and Makkala Sahayavani. 40055 calls were received up to March 2007.
   6. Mangalore Child line was started in 2001. 26,650 calls were received up to March 2007.
4. Sponsorship programme for placing children in families:
   State government accorded approval for sponsorship programme with the objective of deinstitutionalizing children and enable parents to bring up their children in a family environment .

Conclusion

1. The National Policies and Programmes designed by Department of Women and Child Development are working for the upliftment and betterment of health, education, and empowerment of citizens of the country.
2. Since the people living below poverty line are the worst hit by diseases & problems associated with poverty, majority of the programmes are catering to this vulnerable group.
3. The various child, women & social defense related programmes are need based programmes & are of great help to the society.
4. The impact can be clearly observed as there is a drop in the infant, maternal and uder-5 mortality rate, school dropouts and increase in literacy rate.
5. The welfare of children and women contributes to welfare of the family and in turn the entire nation progresses.