Legacy Collective for Miracle Foundation:  A Family for Every Child

Initaitive Description

Every child should be able to live in a family, either with their parents or in an attachment-based, family styled environment while experiencing a sense of belonging.

Our mission is supporting orphans to have a better quality of life while bringing about sustainable change that reduces the need for orphanages. Since its founding in 2000, Miracle Foundation has improved the lives of more than 15,000 children.

In late March 2020 on directive by the Indian government, thousands of children living in orphanages - who have family/kin to live with – were returned to their communities. The Child Welfare Committee did this with the intention of lessening the spread of COVID-19. The families (mostly single mothers) are daily wage earners, who already struggle to feed their family. Miracle Foundation (Miracle) took immediate action to provide food and basic health necessities to this disadvantaged population.

Then on September 26, The Indian National Commission of Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) officially stated that “You cannot take away the right to a family from a child because of poverty.” In light of this declaration, the NCPCR has directed the District Magistrates of the 8 states (representing 70% of the children currently living in orphanages) with an order of immediate repatriation and restoration of children into family care. The approximate number of children impacted is 200,000.

This is a moment for which Miracle Foundation is uniquely prepared. For years, we have been committed to seeing children living in families – not institutions. Miracle developed and has been implementing a reunification process for close to three years. Due to COVID-19, the process required a redesign. Miracle has redesigned each of its programs and trained its social workers to implement services remotely. In May, Miracle implemented its Expedited Case Management (ECM) process to ensure children are safely and effectively placed in family care. This process is unique and developed exclusively by Miracle Foundation to be shared and used by others in the child care domain.

The ECM major components include; comprehensive child and family assessments, child and family preparation, individual care plan, and post-placement support. We are focusing on post-placement support through monitoring and evaluation and learning. Miracle’s Home Thrive Scale™ methodology- used to measure the ECM- ensures that when children are sent home they remain safe and thriving by measuring the following five well-being domains; family and social relationships, household economy, education, physical and mental health, and living conditions.

Initiative Impact

Miracle’s ECM process has been fully activated in Miracle supported orphanages following the best interest of the child. Miracle has incorporated this process in their training with government officials through its partnership with UNICEF and four India state governments. Miracle is partnering with eight other child protection organizations in India and meeting with the governments on getting children safely home. Miracle’s ECM is currently shared on Better Care Network and India Alternative Care Network sites. With the Indian government currently creating policy on Family Based Care and Miracle Foundation providing the know-how, systemic change can occur.

Miracle is in the process of developing training videos demonstrating ECM and the Home Thrive Scale™ methodology step by step. The videos will be animated in order to be easily translated and shared throughout India (and eventually globally). These resource tools will aid in training social workers, Child Welfare Committees (CWC), and other government workers as well as orphanage directors on Miracle’s proprietary ECM process.

Miracle will deploy this digital toolkit, which will provide the how-to and support in a consistent manner. One of Miracle’s core competencies is training and are known experts in the field. Miracle has extensive experience and success in a “training the trainer” model. This method enables ECM to be effectively expanded.

Anticipated outcomes include:

-Capacity building in the standards of family based / alternative care for government officials at the state and district level as well as the orphanages, delivered through a train the trainer cascade approach.

-Establishment of multi-sectoral linkages among the concerned departments within the sphere of child care and protection.

-Increase awareness of the issue through continued dialogues with key players in the domain. In addition, plans are in process for a global narrative change.

-Build the capacity of stakeholders to help them perform at scale.

-Nurture a culture of collective impact. This will continue to scale as funders, NGOs and governments work and grow together.