After successfully working with children in child care institutions over the years, Make A Difference started tracking the outcomes of care leavers beyond child care institutions. Make A Difference conducted multiple research to identify some critical drivers that act as a potential barrier for care leavers to achieve outcomes equitable with the middle class. Based on the data from the research and the need analysis, Make A Difference initiated Aftercare intervention in 2014 intending to build a long term holistic intervention extending until the age of 28 depending on the support required for the care leaver. Make A Difference believes stability across four broad areas together would provide the necessary foundations required for the care leavers to achieve and sustain middle-class outcomes. These areas include personal, financial, living and family conditions of the care leavers. Make A Difference has identified some key trajectory points or events that affect an individual’s ability to continue or to progress towards a healthy and stable middle-class life. Factoring in the strategies and the aftercare theories of change, Make A Difference has developed an age transitional model for the aftercare demography which is built along three stages or bands of aftercare intervention. These bands are primarily based on the age group of the care leaver, and the support required to prioritise interventions better depending on what the care leaver needs at any given age. The primary delivery model for aftercare interventions at Make A Difference is through self-support groups, this model is targeted to build long term self-sustainable communities of care leavers in the cities that aftercare programme is currently operating in.

This report on Aftercare is based on research on “Current Aftercare Practices” (CAP), with regard to Children in Need of Care and Protection (CNCP), under the JJ Act, 2015, conducted in five states of India, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. It is about the status of Aftercare youth, or Care Leavers (CLs), who as wards of the state in the child protection system, while they were below the age of eighteen, we are entitled to care, protection, treatment, development, rehabilitation and re-integration by the state – as explicitly stated in the Preamble of the JJ Act, 2015. On attaining the age of majority – i.e. eighteen years, they are now compelled to transition from state care in a Child Care Institution (CCI) to adulthood in the wider community. The study aims to influence the contemporary care leaving policy, law and practice in India.

Current Aftercare Practices (CAP) is a research study conducted in the State of Delhi and is part of a multistate study conducted in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. The CAP study is an Udayan Care initiative, supported and funded by UNICEF, Tata Trusts and other partners; and is based on the premise that every child who leaves an Alternative Care setting on completing 18 years of age (or becomes a ‘Care Leaver’) needs extended support in the form of Aftercare. The CAP study gathers evidence through a scientific data collection process, consolidates knowledge and promising practices, and discusses gaps and challenges from multi-stakeholders’ perspective. At various stages, the study has employed participatory methods to incorporate the voices of CLs and critical feedback from key stakeholders and experts.