World Autism Awareness Day: U.P. shelter homes still ‘unfriendly’ for special needs children

Surabhi Kapoor, a former principal of Study Hall Dosti School for special needs children, said the lack of trained caregivers at shelters was extremely damaging to such children.

Even when legislations now require educational institutions to become more accessible to children with special needs, state-run children’s shelter homes in Uttar Pradesh still struggle to provide adequate care and support for such children.

(For representation)

“Shelter homes have no provision for children with special needs. Such children are often forced to acclimatise to other children’s lifestyles without the adequate assistance that they need,” said Dhiresh Bahadur, the founder of Drishti Samajik Sansthan, a shelter home for differently abled and special needs children.

“Underprivileged or abandoned children with special needs often go unnoticed by these government shelters. Also, staff there are not equipped to handle such situations,” said Bahadur. He further expounded that special needs children come with varying degrees of disabilities.

“While the common factor in taking care of these children is a deep sense of compassion, their requirements in terms of assistance are all quite different,” said Bahadur.

He added while it might be a long shot to expect separate shelter homes for such children, existing ones at least ought to have trained helpers, caregivers and nurses.

“The sooner a clinical psychologist diagnoses a child with special needs, the quicker they can begin integrating the children with the mainstream,” she said. “The children ought to be able to grow up around their peers who are without special needs, without the pressure of having to be like them. That is the only way to help these children move forward. Many autistic children have completely normal intelligence while some have super intelligence but no social skills,” she explained.

“At present, there are several children at shelters who come with certain psychiatric conditions,” informed a helper at the Bal Griha for children aged 0-10 years on Prag Narayan Road. “We can tell from their behaviour and interactions that they may be specially abled. We have no other place to house them except for with all the other kids. Also, we have neither training nor extra staff to provide them with the extra care that they need,” he added.

According to the district probation officer (Mahila Kalyan) in Lucknow, the city is home to four such shelter homes: one each for girls and boys in the age group of 10 to 18 years, another for children aged 0-10 years and a juvenile home for child offenders. In 2023, the women and child development department announced the addition of 35 new shelter homes for children across the state.