WHAT IS CHILDLINE?

CHILDLINE India Foundation is a non-profit organization that function as a nodal agency for CHILDLINE’s across India. CHILDLINE 1098 is a 24-hour, free, emergency phone service for children in India. CHILDLINE functions through a network of over 200 organisations spread across states of the country. CHILDLINE is operational in 81 cities in 25 states in India. 1098 is the CHIDLINE helpline number.
Contents
1 History
2 Cities
3 CHILDLINE Model
4 Structure of CHILDLINE at the local level in any city/district
5 How CHILDLINE works
6 Departments of CHILDLINE India Foundation
6.1 Awareness and Advocacy
6.2 Finance and Administration
6.3 Services
6.4 Policy, Research and Documentation Wing
7 Website
8 References
9 See also
History
CHILDLINE was a project started by Jeroo Billimoria, then a social worker and faculty member of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and her team. After doing research among the street children of mumbai city she concluded that the children wanted a service that they could access after the other offices and services closed. The idea of an Emergency telephone number was scoffed at by people in the community. People thought it was an ‘elite western’ concept that children on the street would never use.
Jeroo Billimoria and her team conducted the survey to appeal collectively to the Department of Telecommunications (India). Four years after the project was initiated, there was the inauguration of CHILDLINE on 20th of June 1996 by Mr. Tyagi, the then Commissioner of Police of Mumbai under the guidance of Jeroo Billimoria. It started as an experimental project of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. The youth that Ms. Billimoria had worked with volunteered to respond to calls and conduct awareness about the CHILDLINE service.
In 1998 CHILDLINE partnered with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India to take the CHILDLINE service to 30 cities. Simultaneously a separated foundation for CHILDLINE was registered. CHILDLINE India Foundation came to be on May 29th 1999. It is a partnership between the Ministry of Women and Child Development Government of India, voluntary agencies, academic institutions, children, the corporate sector, State Governments, donor organizations, and concerned individuals.
Cities
CHILDLINE operates in 84 cities in 25 states across India. Agartala, Ahmedabad, Ahmednagar, Alwar, Allahabad, Amravati, Aurangabad, Bangalore, Baroda, Berhampur, Bhopal, Bhubneshwar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Cuddalore, Cuttack, Delhi, Goa, Gorakhpur, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Gwalior, Hyderabad, Imphal, Indore Jaipur, Jalpaiguri, Jammu, Kakinada, Kalyan, Kanchipuram, Kannur, Kanpur, Kanyakumari, Karaikal, Kasargod, Kishanganj, Kochi, Kolkata, Kollam, Kota, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Ludiana, W. Medinipur, E. Medinipur, Madurai, Mangalore, Meerut, Mumbai, Murshidabad, Nadia, Nagapattinam, Nagpur, Nashik, Patna, Ranchi, Rourkela, Salem, Tirunelveli, Trichy Triruvananthapuram, Palghat, Port Blair, Pune,Wayanad.Malappuram
CHILDLINE Model
CHILDLINE works with the children in the city/district. This includes the following catergories - street children and youth living alone on the street, child labourers in the unorganised sector, children who have been abused, child victims of the flesh trade, differently-abled children, children with addictions, children in conflict with the law, children in institutions, mentally ill children, children affected by HIV/AIDS, children affected by conflicts and disasters, child political refugees, children whose families are in crisis, etc.
Calls made to CHILDLINE are logged as medical assistance, shelter, missing children, Repatriation, Protection from abuse, Emotional support and guidance, Death, information about CHILDLINE, Volunteers, Information and referral to services, Silent calls, Chat calls etc. Its cases involve sickness, death and abuse of children, runaways and child labour, focusing on the marginalized child. After the initial crisis intervention CHILDLINE links these children to long-term services such as other NGOs, Government Organisations and services.
Structure of CHILDLINE at the local level in any city/district
CHILDLINE functions through a network of Non-governmental organizations, academic institutes, the corporate sector and the allied systems. The focus of the service according to CHILDLINE is adapt their model according to the kind of problems children face in that particular city/district.
CHILDLINE Advisory Board (CAB) comprising senior level functionaries from the allied systems, NGOs concerned individuals, media etc. It is the policy making body for CHILDLINE at the city level and it undertakes periodic review of CHILDLINE
The Nodal Organization, essentially an academic institute responsible for coordination, training, research, documentation, awareness and advocacy
The Collaborative Organization, essentially a 24-hour service for children, responds to calls on 1098, provides emergency intervention, links children to services for rehabilitation, conducts awareness and outreach programmes, documents the calls that come into CHILDLINE.
The Support Organization responds to calls referred by the collaborative organization, conducts awareness and outreach programs
Resource Organizations: These organizations act as referral centres for CHILDLINE. They also participate in outreach and awareness programs for CHILDLINE
How CHILDLINE works
The CHILDLINE service can be understood at three levels – 1098 Service, CHILDLINE at the city level and CHILDLINE India Foundation (CIF) at the national level.
The CHILDLINE service, 1098, connects callers to one of CHILDLINE’s collaborative agencies. When a child or adult calls in, a CHILDLINE team member goes out to the child or alerts a support agency in the vicinity of the child in distress. After the emergency needs of the child have been addressed, CHILDLINE explores options with the child to study, learn a trade, go back home etc. Based on the decision of the child, CHILDLINE links the child to an appropriate organisation in the city.
All CHILDLINE centers in the country work under partnerships. The Partnerships in each city/district work with the brand add-on model to cater the service to the children in that region. A list of all CHILDLINE Partners can be found on their website.
At the national level, CHILDLINE India Foundation over sees the CHILDLINE Service across the country. It sets up and facilitates the functioning of the service and aims at sensitizing the community to child rights issues.
Departments of CHILDLINE India Foundation
Awareness and Advocacy
The awareness and advocacy department is responsible for the following tasks:
Creating a brand image for CHILDLINE
Awareness for CHILDLINE
Fundraising for CHILDLINE
Public relations
Finance and Administration
Finance and Administration performs the function of accounts, treasury, administration, premises, procurement of goods and services and hitherto nebulous personnel functions of the organization.
Services
The Services department of CHILDLINE India Foundation handles all matters concerning the actual functioning and efficiency of the helpline. It is responsible for the initiation and facilitation of the CHILDLINE service across the nation. Its functioning can be broadly be categorized into four parts.
Preparatory functions that precede the initiation of CHILDLINE
Networking, facilitating and capacity building the CHILDLINE network
Processing and recommending the organizations implementing the CHILDLINE service to the Government of India for receipt of Grant-in-aid
Research and documentation
Policy, Research and Documentation Wing
At the time of inception, there was no formal PRAD department at CHILDLINE India Foundation.
Publications: After deciding upon a subject, the department feels is revleant to child issues, PRAD carries out research, verifies sources and conducts a study on the subject. PRAD finally publishes studies and manuals on the subject.
Newsletter: The newsletter is a bimonthly publication of CIF, sharing and informing about various CHILDLINE activities and different kinds of calls coming in at CHILDLINE to all departments. On many occasions, the newsletters are issue-based. Every two months, the services department provides the PRAD department information about CHILDLINE activities, which are then compiled, and drafts circulated before the actual printing.
Call documentation: PRAD uses a monitoring software package for documenting its child assistance case details and missing children case details. It also compiles a directory of all the agencies (Collab, Support, Resource etc.) in different parts of India, for easy reference.
Website
The CHILDLINE Website was launched on 31st March 2007. At the time there were two sections to the Website: CHILDLINE 1098 Service which gives an overview of their helpline and Childline India Foundaion which gives an overview of their nodal agency. A section called Child Protection and Rights was added in January 2008. It covers a number of topics about Children's rights and Child protection issues internationally as well as in India.