DPI-CPA
Executive Summary
Last updated
Executive Summary
Last updated
There are over 16 crore children between the ages of 11-17 in India [Ministry of HFW, 2022] making us home to the largest adolescent population in the world. With the rapid urbanisation of India, two-working parent homes, rise in nuclear families, and premature exposure of children through social media, children-in-need (of mental health support and physical protection) have gone from being an exception to the norm, converting child welfare from a ‘familial’ issue to a national scale challenge: a child in India commits suicide every hour [NCRB 2021] and 1 in 2 children will be exposed to abuse and violence [NIH, 2021].
Multiple governmental and non-governmental initiatives have been pivotal in shaping the space of child-welfare in the country. However, due to the depth of diversity and scale of the country, children cannot equitably access support systems that are available. And the child welfare ecosystem struggles from a lack of financial and human resources, which restrict their ability to scale, leading to children engaging with un-trained or under-trained personnel. The advent of digital mediums has further exacerbated the problem of mis-information and un-safe interactions.
To de-risk society, it is important to proactively create safe, regulated, community pathways for children to seek trusted information and interact with ecosystem resources, in the absence of which, potentially dangerous dependencies on un-regulated digital and human support systems will continue to grow.
This initiative focuses on interlinked aspects of child-welfare: access to mental health resources & psycho-social support (care), and access to justice resources (protection).
To provide holistic care to children, this initiative caters to both adolescents (children aged 10 to 18) as well as their caregivers (such as guardians, teachers, community workers and so on).
This initiative harnesses the digital public infrastructure (DPI) approach to address these goals and challenges - it is one that has demonstrated success in diverse fields in India and around the world. Examples include Aadhaar (identity), UPI (payments), DIKSHA (education), United Health interface (health), United Energy Interface (climate change), VISTAAR (agriculture), Open Network for Digital Commerce (commerce) and beyond. While child-welfare is unique, there are shared lessons that can be leveraged to solve certain challenges in this space as well.
Contrary to what the term may indicate, the word ‘digital’ doesn’t imply that it is purely a technological solution to what is fundamentally a human-first problem. The DPI approach solves fundamental challenges around language barriers and capacity gaps, while allowing for interactions by children both on-device and off (through physical touch points).
The infrastructure created under this initiative will be available for reuse by all community entities who join the network such as a GoI or NGO website, any messaging application such as WhatsApp or USSD numbers, mounted-devices in school bathrooms, physical helpdesks at railway stations and so on, for inclusive access by children.
Throughout the process, no data on children is captured or stored. The planned ecosystem will be fully compliant not only with the DPDP Act 2023 and will adhere to all relevant existing legislations, including the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005 - which operate on the principle of the best interest of the child.
The immediate goal of this initiative is to connect children with the layer of support they need while optimising for ecosystem capacity.
A tiered intervention model ensures that prevention and pro-active resolutions for low-risk cases can be equitably scaled through 'Trusted knowledge' and 'Trusted guidance', while high-risk cases requiring specialised attention can be escalated to appropriate emergency services.
Entities often have deep sectoral knowledge that get siloed by region, language or reach. Community curated information disseminated in age-appropriate, multi-lingual, interactive formats (child led Q&A, not static content), along with basic support expands access to help for more children
Focuses on up-skilling existing intermediaries, allowing ‘gig’ contributions by counsellors, teachers, NGO workers, expanding reach through automatic language translation. Filters capacity on real time availability, allowing children to choose their guide and seek repeat help, anonymously, by text
Bridges the trust gap between children and current emergency services, sharing context-aware transfers to national helpline and GoI approved emergency intervention providers by region of operations for physical intervention as per status quo.
Eg: A child is provided with empathetic support and techniques to manage stress through a DPI layer
Eg: A child receives guidance on how to sensitise their specific community members on child marriage through a trained Guide of their choice
Eg: A child is connected with the national helpline and regulated local first responders
The long term goal of this initiative is to build a financially sustainable child-welfare ecosystem that can leverage the robust young talent force in the country.
We humbly invite conversations and co-creation from community leaders and stakeholders to strengthen and build this. Please reach out to us at tanushka@cdpi.dev
