Partnerships to protect dignity of children and to prevent exploitation

Prerana (NGO) is a civil society organization that started working in the red light areas of Mumbai in 1986 under the leadership of the founder Dr. Pravin Patkar and Priti Patkar, which serves the actual and potential women and children victims of commercial sexual exploitation & trafficking. Prerana has been successful in influencing Indian policy-making at various levels. The organization was instrumental in persuading the government to integrate a child trafficking policy into the country’s 1998 National Plan. Following public interest litigation filed in 2010 on the rehabilitation of sex workers, one of Prerana’s founders, Priti Patkar, was appointed onto a Supreme Court panel to recommend possible amendments to the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act of 1956. Prerana takes a 360-degree approach to its efforts in ending commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking work by playing roles in protection, prevention, vigilance, rescue, post-rescue operations, victim care services, prosecution, empowerment of victim women, advocacy, legal support, policy level, and administrative reforms, rehabilitation, and social reintegration, generating social awareness, research and documentation, sensitization and training of special functionaries (like police, judiciary, etc) and networking and capacity building of fellow organizations.

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and Prerana (NGO)

The founders of the Prerana organization were attached with Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham at various levels of mutual association. Both the founders were supporting the institution in developing a curriculum of Social Work at the master’s level and served in academics as adjunct /visiting faculty in Social work since the inception of the course in 2007. Dr Praveen Patkar had been a member of the Board of studies of Social work till 2015.

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is the first university in India to offer Child Rights and child protection as specialization to Social Work program. Association with the founders of Prerana was instrumental in the establishment of the specialization with the Social work program at Amritapuri and Ettimadai Campuses.

The continuation of association with Prerana contributes to organizing the workshop in the Dissemination of Compendium on the Juvenile Justice rules for the Stakeholders of Child Protection and Human Trafficking & Trauma Care” in September 4, 2019.

Compendium by PRERANA and IJM

PRERANA and International Justice Mission(IJM), both having long association and collaboration with various CWC’s and CCIs have reached a conclusion that the efficacy of these bodies can be boosted if equipped with some model case work forms, ranging from state issued to others jointly suitably modified without change in the content or general sense. Based on this they have jointly developed a compendium of Orders and formats- which is a first of its kind resource for the use of CWCs, CCIs and NGOs consisting of best practice orders and formats created by amalgamating the model format with best practice as observed on the field.

The Compendium includes:

• Important forms and formats used by the CWCs and Shelter Homes as per the JJ Act and Model Rules
• Formats of best practice directions/orders issued by the CWC in cases of Children in Need of Care and Protection
• Best practice formats for reports/forms for the Child Care Institutions working with children in need of care and protection
• Best practice guides on important topics such as ‘Orientation of a child to the Institution’, ‘How to speak to a child sensitively’ etc.
• A section on Trauma Counselling with case studies and a best practice counseling report format

Objectives of the Workshop

1. To disseminate the Compendium among the stakeholders
2. To train the representatives of stakeholders in the use of formats and orders uniformly
3. Provide training on preparing Social Investigation Report (SIR) and evolving Individual Care Plan (ICP)
4. Knowledge enhancement on Human Trafficking situation in India
5. Awareness on Trauma-informed care of children
6. Skill development in Dealing with children