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Fostering is a process where the child is allowed to live with the extended family or any unrelated individuals. The Women and Child Development (WCD) Ministry has now permitted single-parent adoption for aged 25 to 60 years. Single parents including windowed, unmarried, divorced or separated can now be eligible to adopt after two years, according to the recent Model Foster Care Guidelines. A woman can adopt a child of any gender, while a man can only adopt a male child. Previously only married couples were allowed to foster a child, referred to as “both spouses”. In India fostering children was allowed only after the age of six years living in a child care institution and also after getting to know that they do not have proper guardians to take care of. Minors in this group “ hard to place or children having special needs” can also be fostered.
Fostering is open to any individuals irrespective of their marital status like unmarried, divorced or widow or legally separated, No restrictions on whether the parents have any biological son or daughter. The revised guidelines will now allow the adoption of the child after she or he has been in foster care for a minimum of two years. In the case of a married couple, no newly wed couple is allowed to foster a child. They were allowed after the settled marriage of at least two years. Earlier there was no such clause, recently this has come up. The guidelines were circulated to all the states after the amendments to the 2016 guidelines to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act in 2021 and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Model Rules of 2022. The guidelines made sense only after the single individuals were allowed to adopt children and not allowed to foster.
Age factor for Foster:
According to 2016 guidelines, both spouses should be above the age of 35 years. Now in the revised guidelines, a foster child should be in the age of six to 12 years and 12 to 18 years age brackets. The composite age of the married couple is to be a minimum of 70 years, where the foster parent should cross the age of 35 years and a maximum age of 55 years for a single person and can be allowed to foster a child of 6 to 12 years age group. Parents who want to foster can now register on the website Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS). Children who live in childcare will have a lot of trauma, and know about foster parenting before going for it.
