KOCHI: The Ernakulam District Child Protection Unit (DCPU) has restarted the vacation foster care after two years. The service facilitates orphaned children to live in the care of foster parents during vacations but had to be stopped due to the pandemic outbreak. Though the service restarted, DCPO Sini K S said the number of takers was very less this year.
She believes this is because the news regarding vacation foster care resuming services did not reach many families. Due to the pandemic, the children at government children’s homes didn’t get an opportunity to go outside and visitors were also not allowed at these homes for the last two years.
This time, we closed the applications by the end of March. Unfortunately, we could get only three to four applications. These will be scrutinised and then submitted to the Child Welfare Committee,” said the DCPO. The DCPU, under the Department of Women and Child Development, is the nodal office of all the foster care-related programmes.
The CWCs in every district provide legal assistance for children and families in need, the official said. As part of the vacation foster care project, children who are not legally orphaned — having at least one parent who is still alive — and those who are unable to visit their families during the vacation will be sent to live with a family for two months during the summer vacation.