Peer-reviewed article
Nurturing childhood through group foster care system: A case study of hope community village
S. Pradeep Punnya, P X Francina ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examines Hope Community Village in Kerala, India, which operates a group foster care system for vulnerable children in need of care and protection. The system provides a family-like environment with structured processes including intake, assessment, planning, intervention, and aftercare. The research found that the model successfully addresses children's basic rights including healthcare, nutrition, safe housing, and protection from violence. The main challenges are funding, staffing, and social acceptance, which the village addresses through active management and advocacy.
Key points
- The group foster care system follows a structured six-step process: intake, need assessment, care planning, intervention, evaluation, and aftercare
- Children in the system received quality healthcare, age-appropriate nutrition, safe housing, protection from physical and psychological harm, and rehabilitation support
- The model incorporates children's voices in decision-making and respects their ethnic background and religion
- Barriers to implementation include funding constraints, evolving social policies, insufficient professional staff, and limited societal acceptance
- The study identifies the model as replicable for other settings seeking to provide comprehensive care to vulnerable children
Limitations
This is a qualitative case study of a single organisation, so findings cannot be generalised to other group foster care systems or settings. The study does not include comparative data or long-term outcome measures to assess the durability of benefits or children's trajectories after leaving the system.
Abstract
Kerala is a pioneer in implementing pro-poor laws and social protection schemes, ensuring the rights and welfare of children in underprivileged communities. This study examines the innovative group foster care system of Hope Community Village in Alappuzha, Kerala, as a transformative approach in addressing the needs of Children in Need of Care and Protection (CNCP) by providing a familial environment. A qualitative approach was used, employing focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews. Participants included children, Hope Mothers, and key organisational staff, selected through purposive sampling. The research focused on understanding the process, benefits, challenges, and coping strategies within the system. The findings indicated that the system follows a structured process of intake, need assessment, care planning, intervention, evaluation, and aftercare. Benefits align with the themes of four basic child rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1992 which include ensuring quality healthcare, age-appropriate nutrition, a safe place to live, protection from physical violence and psychological intimidation, rehabilitation, and reintegration into society with dignity, respect to ethnic background and religion and taking the voices of children into account. Challenges identified include funding constraints, evolving social policies, professional staffing, and societal acceptance which were coped through strategies involving fund management, active policy advocacy, staff recruitment, and social engagement. The study concludes that the group foster care model at Hope Community Village is a replicable framework for providing comprehensive care and protection to vulnerable children.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Group foster care system providing structured intake, assessment, care planning, intervention, evaluation, and aftercare with designated caregivers (Hope Mothers) in a community-based village setting
- Population
- Children in need of care and protection in Alappuzha, Kerala, India