Child Reunification Process in Tamilnadu
Child reunification process in Tamil Nadu. A study on the status of children protected and reunified....
Before we closed school in the middle of March 2020 in response to Government safety guidelines for Covid, I had already unlearned and relearned much of what I had assumed about working with children with disabilities. When you work with children who have a hearing impairment, or children with intellectual disabilities, and recognize the personality that each has, and how the disability is only one part of the child, there is a shame inside, for thinking differently all these years. And for the condescension that comes with statements like, she’s disabled but has such a beautiful singing voice! Or disabled children are so kind!
Learning how to work remotely with children with disabilities
During the first few weeks post lockdown, we were regularly in touch with the children – daily Whatsapp messages, videos, activities, conversations with parents, and individual child’s tracking sheet…these were all standard parts of our routine very quickly. Each conversation would start with, How are you today?
Hearing their voices
In April 2020, we worked with Praxis on a webinar where the speakers were children themselves and their parents. We saw how they kept themselves engaged doing craft. How some were really bored staying home. And how parents were genuinely struggling to manage their own insecurities around livelihoods and income along with the special care needed by a child with disability.
Dr Harish Shetty, summing up at the end of that session, said something that struck me as critical. He pointed out that children with disabilities are more impacted by the lack of physical activity i.e. playtime than children who do not have a disability. Although many – whether adults or children- have been bored, angry and irritable – for children with disabilities this is enhanced because they don’t have the scope to be in touch with their friends and peers in the way that others do. This results in a sense of ‘secondary isolation’.
Second, he pointed out that the luxury of time with children is not something that is an opportunity every parent can sieze. The surfeit of time feeds into the anxiety about livelihood. But significantly, for parents of children with disabilities, especially those who live in limited spaces with less than optimal light, ventilation and hygiene, this also puts them in touch with the day to day challenges of a child who is otherwise at school or out playing much of the day.
Exacerbated Challenges with the extended lockdown
Four months down the line, with little progress having been made on ‘opening up’ or on finding a way to live with the virus, we are seeing an increasing number of people who struggle with deep sadness, anxiety, dispiritedness and loneliness. Among children with disability there’s an increasing anxiety regarding the desire to come back to school. Our teachers report that with every call from them there’s hope and then disappointment so a call from school in a way increases their anxiety.
Additionally, still not having access to the comfort of relationships outside of the family that bring another kind of reassurance is a challenge. There is a sense of boredom and as a result of the difficulty that children with intellectual disabilities face with expressing themselves, this boredom gets manifested as stubbornness, sadness, anger and frustration.
For several children who had appeared for their Class X exams the anxiety is about the possibility of not being able to complete schooling, not knowing their Class X results. Several are worried that if this continues their parents will pull them out of school and send them to relatives that live in areas outside of Mumbai.
How can we be there for our children
At Save The Children India (STCI), we’re recommending three simple strategies to help children with disabilities to cope with these anxieties:
A note to ourselves
Most of all two simple things can help us all – child or adult, person with disability or able bodied.
There is much that is outside our control. But perhaps if we recognize, appreciate, celebrate and reinforce those things that are, we can help each other get through and cope with the uncertainty better.
This article is written by Havovi Wadia, CEO of Save The Children India, where programming focuses on reaching children who tend to get left out due to multiple marginalisations, with inputs from Farida Bagasrawala, Director- Disability at STCI.
Child reunification process in Tamil Nadu. A study on the status of children protected and reunified....
Mitigating the impact of the COVID pandemic for children & families ...
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