Plan of action

There is very little awareness among the people about the issues, laws and procedures involved in adopting a child. Even though it has been observed that there is an increasing desire among the Indian parents to go for adoption but there is hardly any information available to such couples.

The endeavour of the Government, therefore, would be to spread the information among the people about the agencies involved in adoption, laws and procedures formulated for Adoption. The department would also like to promote adoption among more and more Indian families.

It is therefore proposed to make publicity for promoting adoption with the help of television network.

As of now, there is no guide book available to the adoptive parents or even for the persons associated with adoption about the laws relating to adoption, licensing agencies and their addresses, etc. It is therefore proposed to print a guide book which could be distributed not only to the agencies involved in adoption, but also the district officials to inform them and the public about the adoption procedures, as there is no awareness about the legal procedure involved in giving abandoned and surrendered child in adoption.

Interactive sessions between parents willing to adopt, licensing agency, VCA, adoptive parents association and adoption cell in the Directorate of Social Welfare and district officials, is extremely important to discuss in detail the problems encountered by the various agencies in processing the papers relating to adoption and sharing the experience between the various functionaries involved in adoption. It is therefore proposed to have brain storming sessions to thrash out the problems concerning adoption.

It is also proposed to print posters and distribute the same to the various functionaries including government officials and display them in various public places in both Tamil and English to promote adoption.

At present, we have 21 licensed agencies to take up adoption in the cities of Chennai, Coimbatore, Trichy, Tuticorin, Madurai,  kancheepuram, Dharmapuri, Thiruvallur, Namakkal, Dindigul, Nagapattinam, Tirunelveli and Salem.  However, there is no agency in other districts. It is therefore proposed to identify one such agency in every district of Tamil Nadu and train them thoroughly for 3 days about the adoption procedures.

Advertisement and publicity through newspapers has been proposed, as it is the most important media to reach masses for spreading awareness. Similarly, hoardings have been proposed at prominent places for promoting adoption.

It is proposed that one day could be celebrated as the Adoption Day to promote and publicize adoption by organising seminars, conferences, rallies etc.,

It is proposed to develop a resource centre in the directorate which will be the repository of information available about adoption including the adoption details and matters relating to each state throughout the country and even about other countries and some journals dealing with adoption, books about adoptions etc. It is proposed to provide a personal computer with a printer to store the data relating to adoption.