The idea of foster care is catching up in the capital city; 39 kids from Poojappura Government Children’s Home are placed under foster care where they enjoy the warmth and bonding of a family
Two kids aged five and three, were roaming around with their mom at the Thampanoor railway station in Thiruvananthapuram. They seemed lost. The police took them to the Mahila Mandiram and from there they reached the Child Welfare Committee. The mother was found to be mentally unstable. The children were taken to different children’s homes until a family came forward to take them under foster care. A relatively new concept in Thiruvananthapuram, the idea of foster care is to let children who are not entirely orphaned but who have to stay in an institute, be placed in a family temporarily. If the foster parents are found fit, the stay will be extended. At a programme Sanatha Balyam Snehasangamam held at the Poojappura Government Children’s Home on Monday, there was a gathering of foster parents, and a painting exhibition by kids inaugurated by five known faces — former collector Biju Prabhakar, musician Kavalam Sreekumar, actor Priyanka Nair, writer P.V. Shaji Kumar, and political satirist George Pulikkan.
“Thirty five children have been placed under foster care with different families since last year. At the programme, four more children have been placed,” says Subair, district child protection officer. The process begins with inviting applications for foster care. There will then be an investigation to check among many factors, the medical fitness of the applicants, if they already have other children, if they are more than 35 years of age. “If for instance, they have an elder son, we wouldn’t let them have a girl child,” Subair says. Once the application is approved, they will be allowed a choice by asking them what gender and what age would they prefer the child to be. The children will not be lined up in front of them to be chosen. But based on their preference, a suitable child will be put in their care. “We call and check in the first two days, visit a week later, and make periodic visits every two weeks. This will be done by a protection officer for non-institutional care or a social worker. It is usually for the two-month summer vacation. But if we find that there is a good relation between the child and the foster parents, we let them continue their stay.”
Wall painted by children of Special Home, Poojappura.
Foster care becomes different from adoption in that, the latter is a permanent facility to place a child in a family. Also it is children who are not entirely orphaned who are placed under foster care. There will be a system for them to keep in touch with their biological parents or relatives. There are also different types of foster care — individual (one child), group (more than one child), kinship (under relatives), vacation, and pre-adoptive. The family that took in the two children, who were found at the Thampanoor railway station, took in one more. “That is under the two children’s suggestion, to take in a friend of theirs. The family has been really nice,” Subair adds.
The children’s home is silent these days with most of the kids going to their relatives for the summer, but due to several reasons, they come back when school starts. They can stay in the children’s home till they turn 18. Vishnu, an exceptionally talented artist whose painting too was exhibited on Tuesday, has left the home, to a hostel with government sponsorship and has joined college. The other paintings too, with their perfection, clearly point to a teacher’s support. Raji, a counselor says, Shaji Palkulangara, the teacher, does not touch their paintings, but let the kids do all the work with his instructions. “We start with pencil sketches and then pencil shades, water colour and acrylic. Next is oil,” Shaji says, sitting at the special home where children who are in conflict with law, stay. Here, a whole wall is painted by children, under Shaji’s instructions. The proud teacher can’t show enough of the children’s work — the acrylic on canvases, the craft work and so on.
Subair says that there are plans to convert one of the old buildings, which was meant to be a reformative school built in 1894, to a museum.
