Swatantra Services – Specialized Service for Children in Need of Care and Protection at NIMHANS

Every Wednesday Timings: 9:00 to 1:00

Place: NIMHANS Child Psychiatry Out Patient Department

Note:

• Every child (whether accompanied by his/her family or by institution staff) is required to have a letter of referral from the CWC/JJB/institution stating some details of the child’s background and reason for referral.

• A copy of this referral may also be emailed to us (capnimhans@gmail.com ) prior to the child’s coming i.e. by Tuesday.

• Upon completion of treatment/ services to a given child, a letter/report will be sent by our team to the concerned CWC/JJB institution, detailing issues, treatment progress and recommendations to be implemented by the institution/ family.

• It would be preferable to organize the required and routine assessments to be done at this special clinic on Wednesdays.

• Should a child require assistance other than Wednesday, on some priority basis, the child can be sent to OPD on any working day between 9 and 11 am; after registration hours, or late evening/ night, if there is an emergency, the child can be sent to NIMHANS’s Emergency department, where he/she will be attended by the Child Psychiatry duty doctor. (This facility is open and can be accessed 24/7).

• Once emergency issues are settled (if any), follow-ups can continue at the Wednesday Special Clinic.

 

Initiation of Swatantra Clinic Services for Vulnerable Children from Institutions & Communities

Following the orientation training conducted by the NIMHANS Project team, for all newly appointed Child Welfare Committee (CWC) members, one of the Bangalore CWCs i.e. the one that serves girls, approached the Dept. of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, NIMHANS, with a request for a counsellor to assist the committee with counselling and decision-making regarding the many vulnerable children they work with. The CWC feels that there are several issues, especially complex ones relating to abuse and trauma and serious behavioural issues, that they find challenging to deal with, and that such children, with moderate to severe psychosocial problems, would benefit greatly from specialized assistance and treatment as soon as they are seen by the CWCs.

Given the Project’s extensive experience of working with institutionalized and other vulnerable children, the Project (which is located in the Dept. of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry) has responded to the CWC’s request by setting up a service for children referred by the CWC. These children include those in government boys and girls homes, the government homes for 0 to 6 year olds and children with disability. Counselling services have been extended to any child referred by any CWC from across the state through the Swatantra Services, which are run each week on Wednesday morning (9 am to 1 pm) in the Child Psychiatry Out-Patient Department space.

As a public hospital, all children referred by state-run (and other) child care institutions and CWC/JJB have been seen on a regular basis, on any working day of the week. However, based on the CWC’s request, the Project took cognizance and initiated Swatantra as a special/ dedicated services (in June 2018), in order to better meet the needs of the children and the CWC as it will cut out long waiting times and also help institution staff/ families organize themselves to bring the children to NIMHANS.