Delhi: Centre to help in transition to outside world

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights is preparing to set up a single point ‘Aftercare Service Centre’ by the end of September. To be made operational from the DCPCR office, this centre will provide linkages to enable children lodged in the child care institutions in Delhi to transition to life beyond care settings after 18 years.
DCPCR chief Ramesh Negi said, “The aftercare cell in DCPCR will operate on the lines of a service centre where staff will be deployed to assist the adults who are under transition from life in a children home to the world outside.They will be assisted with things like certification, identity documents and guidance on career and counselling to help them deal with emotionally stressful situations.” He also said that they will reach out to all children homes to ensure that there is a mainstream integration plan for all children in transition from child care to aftercare.

The existing system lacks in a big way in terms of guiding and tracking the life of children as part of the “aftercare framework” once they move out of the care homes on attaining adulthood. This was highlighted in a five-state study of 435 adults who grew up in children’s homes in Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Gujarat. The study titled “Beyond 18 Leaving Child Care Institutions” is a collaborative work of voluntary organisation Udayan Care, Unicef and Tata Trusts.
For the Delhi specific study 55 adults who grew up in children’s homes were identified and interviewed to find out where they stood in life. Delhi has two aftercare homes, one for boys in Alipur area in northwest where there are around 13 boys currently, and one for girls in Nirmal Chhaya complex in west Delhi where there are around 25 girls.
Aftercare is defined as “making provision of support, financial or otherwise, to persons, who have completed the age of 18 years but have not completed the age of 21 years, and have left any institutional care to join the mainstream of the society.”
The five-state report emphasises the fact that even though “aftercare” has been provided under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, it has so far not been put to uniform practice, leaving children exiting CCIs, on attaining the age of 18 years, as vulnerable youth who are “no ones” responsibility.
Care leavers, as these adults are called, also shared their struggles at the report launch. “Will you leave your child just because he or she is 18 years old now?” 24-year-old Siddharth Yadav asked. He said that he was left to fend for himself after he attained adulthood at the child care institution. “I took refuge in a hospital complex and felt I was back on the streets I came from,” Yadav shared. Currently doing his Masters in Commerce, Yadav works as a freelance accountant.
A beneficiary of an aftercare programme implemented by the NGO run children home she grew up in, Tanu Sharma is 20 and pursuing her graduation. She feels the guidance and support she has received has helped her aim for an MBA. Sharma found herself in a children home by the circumstances created by her dysfunctional family after her mother’s death. She said that in her family girls were considered unwanted and a burden.
A software developer with an IT company 26-year-old Manoj Udayan, who grew up in a care institution and transitioned through a good aftercare experience, said, “ Most of us face challenges at every stage. The society asks us about our family and chooses to classify us as per their understanding of our circumstances. Hence support is important to overcome these emotional challenges too.”
Speaking at the report launch, Aastha Saxena Khawani, joint secretary ministry of women and child development, said that during the review of the future course of the Integrated Child Protection Scheme an assessment of the aftercare system and the changes required will also be taken up. She called upon the states to implement the aftercare system and strengthen it.