Foster Care India & The Necessity of Touch

Babies need loving touch for healthy development

It's a fact: children need to experience touch not only to learn how to show their feelings appropriately but also to promote their healthy development. More often than not, families provide our first experiences of physical contact; we learn how to love and be loved by familial displays of affection, often involving touch. Studies have shown that babies have depressed levels of hormones when living in situations where little physical contact is given such as an orphanage. The hormone oxytocin is released in the body of a person experiencing safe and friendly touch, which has influence on healthy emotional development including caring, communication and stress regulation. Children who have not had enough physical attention are at higher risk for behavioral, emotional, and social problems later in life.

Ian's infectious smile outshines even lovely Udaipur

When traveling in India last April
I was fortunate to have crossed paths with a child well-fare visionary named Ian Anand Forber-Pratt. Adopted as a baby from Calcutta by American parents, was educated mostly in Saint Louis and attended Washington University's Brown School of Social work. A couple of years ago he returned to India with a masters degree in social work to live full-time and fulfill his dream of developing a foster care system for orphaned children. This is a completely new concept in a country where the orphanage model has always been followed.

The caste system, a form of social stratification that governs which jobs a person may perform and who they may associate with, still exists in India. This further complicates how an orphaned child is able to operate in society as, without family they have no caste. Foster Care India hopes to modify how these societal tethers affect orphaned children by providing the opportunity for them to function in a family environment and gain skills to eventually integrate into society. With a home where these kids can experience regular, friendly, familial touch they will be on the path toward being happy, healthy individuals.

Learn more about this revolutionary new organization

I have a lot of amazing people in my life and Ian is one of them. His tireless work and honest passion towards this cause is a great inspiration to me. I'm so very glad that he's out there making the world a better place. It's working.

In the spirit of British Columbia's newest stat holiday, Happy Family Day!

Dana