In partnership with SOS Children’s Village

Abstract: SOS reaches out to over 6,500 once parentless or abandoned girls and boys in 32 SOS Children’s Villages across India. Each children’s village has 12-15 family homes, with every home consisting of 10 children on average, along with an SOS Mother.

Caregivers and the child-caregiver relationships play a crucial role in the child’s development in institutional childcare settings like SOS. BMRF was asked to conduct a training and capacity building programme for SOS house mothers and caregivers to enhance the quality of care in the homes.

A total of 22 sessions were conducted from January to March 2021 by expert in-house and external child developmental experts on ‘Parenting’ of institutionalised children aged 5 years and above, focusing on the psycho-social development needs of children and the importance of caregiver sensitivity and responsiveness to the child. The programme covered important aspects of holistic child development including the stages and domains of development, the needs of the institutionalised child, and personality development of the caregivers.