Revised guidelines expand eligibility: Single parent can foster children, adopt after 2 yrs

• Single parent can foster children, adopt after 2 years.

Highlights:

• The Women and Child Development (WCD) Ministry has now permitted single individuals — including those who are unmarried, widowed, divorced, or legally separated — aged 25 to 60 years, according to the recently released revised Model Foster Care Guidelines.
• However, while a single woman can foster and eventually adopt a child of any gender, a man can only do so for male children.
• In case of married couples who want to foster, the new guidelines state that “no child shall be given in foster care to a couple/spouse” unless they have had a “stable marital relationship of two years”.
• Previously, under the 2016 Model Foster Care Guidelines, only married couples, referred to as “both spouses” in old documents, were permitted to foster a child.
• The 2016 guidelines have been revised in accordance with the amendment to Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act in 2021 and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Model Rules of 2022.

Prelims takeaway:

• Juvenile Justice Act