Get-together of those adopted from Kerala State Council for Child Welfare planned

A programme to promote foster care is also being planned with the aim of reducing institutionalisation, says child welfare council general secretary

A get-together of those adopted from the Kerala State Council for Child Welfare since 1992 is planned for May, council general secretary G.L. Arun Gopi has said.

Mr. Gopi told mediapersons on Tuesday that nearly 1,000 people had been adopted from the council by families within the country and abroad.

The get-together date will be finalised once the general election schedule was announced. The council had got in touch with those who had been adopted to inform them about the programme.

Mr. Gopi said an experience sharing session of those who had been adopted and their adoptive families would be held. It would also be informative for the nearly 3,000 people who have registered with the Central Adoption Resource Authority to adopt children.

He said 89 children had been adopted since the current council assumed charge. Four more children – from Malappuram, Alappuzha, and Thiruvananthapuram – were all set to be adopted in the coming days. Process for adoption of 11 children abroad too was under way. The council was making efforts to expedite the adoption of children to provide them a familial environment, he said.

Foster care

Mr. Gopi said a programme to promote foster care was also being planned with the aim of reducing institutionalisation. Children in need of care and protection living in child care institutions would be shifted to foster care as part of the programme. It would be implemented with the support of the child welfare committees and district child protection units. A preliminary discussion had been held in this regard.

Mr. Gopi said there were many people who had left their children in the care of the council but had not returned to meet them once. Such parents would be summoned with the help of child welfare committees for a special sitting so that the children could be ‘surrendered’ and sent into foster care or for adoption.