This article presents the findings of an exploratory survey of community perceptions about foster care conducted in Udaipur City, Rajasthan, in India in order to assess the prospects for implementing foster care as an alternative to the dominant system of institutional care available to orphaned and abandoned children in India.
In their most recent annual report, the Indian Ministry of Women and Children (2012) has called on non-governmental organizations and voluntary organizations to participate in the construction of a more robust child welfare system, which would include foster care. This study was conducted to address a lack of research examining social perceptions and cultural acceptance for foster care as a practice in India and to inform organizations and practitioners seeking to implement care alternatives for orphan and abandoned children in India.
653 families in urban Udaipur participated in a mixed-methods based assessment of receptivity to foster and adoptive care. The vast majority of respondents (97%) were not familiar with the concept of foster care prior to this study, but once provided with information, over 90% believed that foster care could be implemented in Udaipur and more broadly in India. However, only 32.5% of the respondents reported willingness to provide foster care to a child, citing factors such as timing (“not the right time in life”), social pressure/judgment, family opposition and financial issues as the top factors that would influence a decision whether or not to foster. The study also found that respondents who knew someone who had adopted or fostered a child reported greater willingness to foster than those that did not.
The authors point out that while respondents reported seeing foster care as a positive theoretical concept, there were a number of factors that could heavily impact individual decision-making about participating in this system, and these would need to be better understood and addressed by policy makers and service providers involved in developing foster care as an alternative to institutional care in India.
©Children and Youth Services Review