{"id":42017,"date":"2024-08-20T09:42:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T04:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=42017"},"modified":"2025-05-01T03:19:46","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T21:49:46","slug":"revised-guidelines-for-foster-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/revised-guidelines-for-foster-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Revised Guidelines for Foster Care"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in News?<\/li>\n<li>What is Foster Care?<\/li>\n<li>Model Guidelines for Foster Care 2016<\/li>\n<li>Need to Revise the Foster Care Guidelines 2016<\/li>\n<li>Key Changes Introduced by the Revised Guidelines for Foster Care<\/li>\n<li>Implications of the Revised Guidelines for Foster Care<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) recently released revised Model Foster Care Guidelines 2024.<\/li>\n<li>This has now permitted single individuals to foster a child and adopt after two years, doing away with the rule that limited foster care to married couples.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>What is Foster Care?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Fostering is an arrangement<\/strong> in which a child temporarily lives with either extended family or unrelated individuals.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In India<\/strong>, children who can be fostered have to be above the age of six years living in child care institutions and having \u201c<strong>unfit guardians<\/strong>\u201d.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Minors <\/strong>who are placed in the category of \u201chard to place\/ children having special needs\u201d can also be fostered.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Model Guidelines for Foster Care 2016:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>These guidelines (brought by the MWCD) <strong>detail the procedures, roles and responsibilities of stakeholders<\/strong>, along with various aspects related to the implementation of the foster care program in the districts.<\/li>\n<li>Under the guidelines,<strong> children in the age group of 6-18 years<\/strong>,\n<ul>\n<li>Whose parents are unable to take care of them due to reasons such as mental illness, poverty or imprisonment and<\/li>\n<li>Those staying in child care institutions will be placed in foster care.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Children in the age group 0-6 years<\/strong> will not prefer to be considered for placement in foster care as such small children will be encouraged for adoption under the Regulations Governing Adoption of Children, 2017.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Need to Revise the Foster Care Guidelines 2016:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The guidelines have been revised in accordance with the amendment to-\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2021 and<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Model Rules 2022<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The change in guidelines was needed since single individuals were allowed to adopt children, but were not allowed to foster (as per the earlier guidelines).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Key Changes Introduced by the Revised Guidelines for Foster Care:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Opening up fostering to any person:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Irrespective of their marital status (single\/ unmarried\/ widow\/ divorcee\/ legally separated) and whether or not they \u201chave biological son or daughter\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>However, while a single woman can foster and eventually adopt a child of any gender, a man can only do so for male children.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Allows the foster parent to adopt a child:<\/strong> After s\/he has been in foster care for a minimum of <strong>two years,<\/strong> as opposed to five years earlier.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Guidelines for married couples who want to foster: <\/strong>No child shall be given in foster care to a couple\/spouse <strong>unless they have had a stable marital relationship of two years<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>Earlier, there was no such caveat for couples.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Age of the foster parents:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>While the 2016 guidelines stated that both spouses must be above the age of 35, <strong>the revised guidelines are more specific<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Registration of the foster parents: <\/strong>The foster parents can now register online through a platform &#8211; Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (<strong>CARINGS<\/strong>), which is already being used by prospective adoptive parents for registration.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Implications of the Revised Guidelines for Foster Care:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The changes might encourage more people to apply for foster care.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>According to data with the MWCD, there were 1,653 children (as of March, 2024) in foster care in States and UTs, excluding Goa, Haryana, and Lakshadweep.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>It will give more clarity to people<\/strong> who are accepting a child for foster care that foster care is intended to be temporary care for a child (till the biological family is found to be capable for the child to go back to them).<\/li>\n<li><strong>The changes might encourage more people to apply for child adoption.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Between Sept 2022 (when the Model Rules were notified) and July 2024, a total of 23 children in foster care were adopted by the families after two years of care.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q.1. What is the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act (JJA), 2015?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The JJA addresses children in conflict with law and children in need of care and protection. The Act fulfils India&#8217;s commitment as a signatory to the UN Convention on the rights of the child, the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption (1993), etc.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q.2. What is the Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS)?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>CARINGS is an online platform in India, building bridges and creating links through a robust web-based management system designed to bring transparency in the adoption system and also curtailing delays at various levels.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/india\/child-adoption-revised-guidelines-wcd-ministry-adoption-eligibility-criteria-9522802\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Single parent can now foster children, adopt after 2 years<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/vikaspedia.in\/social-welfare\/women-and-child-development\/child-development-1\/child-adoption\/model-guidelines-for-foster-care\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Vikaspedia<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development recently released revised Model Foster Care Guidelines 2024 permitting single individuals to foster a child and adopt after two years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":42018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-42017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}