A Child Friendly Satara

The First Line of Child Protection

This is Dhanaji Khupkar. He is 30. He’s a Masters in Social Work from Bharatiya Vidyapeeth, Pune. He’s always been passionate about giving back to society, he’s driven about making a difference. He is one among the first line of young professional social workers in every district across the nation who have been chosen as District Child Protection Officers (DCPOs). Each DCPO heads the local District Child Protection Unit (DCPU), a 13 member team responsible for comprehensive care and well-being of children across the district. In short, Dhanaji and others like him are the new face of Child Protection. The first of their kind, they are pioneers in the ongoing experiment of making the nation a better and safer place for children.

For Dhanaji, the fundamentals are clear. “Change begins at the grassroots,” he says.”Sensitivity and awareness towards children and the issues facing them must begin in homes, neighborhoods, schools, shelters, police stations, hospitals and so on.” If we want to foster a culture that is child friendly, these institutions are its holiest places.

“Our work with the neighborhoods has already begun. We have set-up 930 Village Child Protection Committees (VCPCs – village level bodies that ensure children have access to their rights and services in every village) across the district. But that’s just the first step,” he says, “Systems can only work if they are aware of the issues and how to deal with them. Towards this, our DCPU is now engaged in training them. We have finished 40 but there’s a long way to go. I’m confident we will be able to reach out to all 930 in phases.”

The vision is a child friendly Satara where the rights and dignity of every child are safeguarded.

Police Training

Any module or training on handling disclosures of sexual abuse will state that “the first reaction is key.”

In most cases of sexual abuse, the police is the first point of contact between the child victim and the system. Thus, a child friendly police force can play a huge role in not just justice but also recovery and rehabilitation of the child.

“The number of cases of sexual abuse in Satara is increasing,” says Dhanaji. “The reporting has clearly increased and the Police are coping with POCSO as its a new law and there is a lot of unlearning and re-learning involved.”

Satara has 29 police stations. Around 70 officers from all over had gathered at the District Police Headquarters for a training on POCSO facilitated by Aarambh Co-Director and Master Trainer Uma Subramanian.

“The police understands the fundamentals,” says Dhanaji. “But what they need to understand is the spirit of child protection that is the basis of the law.”

Aarambh’s training involves a mix of history, evidence and experience based knowledge, to-dos under the new law and the secret ingredient to every successful training…

It is a participatory exercise that stresses on the need to work together – with the child, the family, the Ngos, the courts, the CWCs and the entire system.