We are also working with children of prisoners left outside. The need for this was felt during our home-visits. Educational need to the children is one of the problems to be tackled while handling the client's case. Thus, we get applications from the prisoners requesting for either shelter or educational support for their children in institutions, or with some relatives, etc. Their requests are in regard to admission into educational institutions, financial help for continuing the education of their children.

In the year 2004-05, we received more than 100 applications requesting support for education. But after a proper assessment, help has been extended either through educational sponsorship for the children, or partial help or a one-time help as per the financial condition of the family. Many older children have to take up employment so as to lend a helping hand to the family's financial problems, thereby forcing them to drop out of school. So provision of a positive environment to the children of prisoners for continuation of education and to prevent them from dropping out from school due to imprisonment of their parents is our main objective.

After paying a home-visit and conducting the necessary enquiries an assessment is made as to which type of help needs to be extended to children completing the age of 5 years and who have to be taken out of prison. if the children, except for some financial help required for the academic costs of the child, then we give an educational sponsorship. This is mainly given in kind in the form of school fees, provision of uniforms, bags, textbooks, notebooks, and other required materials, Thereafter, a close follow-up is kept with the family and about the children's progress by regular home-visits and enquiries.

Later, in regard to the shelter issue of the children, Welfare Committees for admission into children institutions whereby their shelter and education is taken care of. We try to put the children into the institutions where there are especially good educational facilities within the institution or they are sent outside the institutions to good schools. Here, we face lot of problems in trying to convince the Child Welfare Committee or the institutions to admit these children. In a few institutions, due to reservations, admission is refused. It is difficult to get admission for children in many government-aided institutions due to reservation to particular categories. At times, we also admit some children to residential institutions directly and pay for their expenses.

Another issue is in regard to placement of the children as per the district jurisdiction. This prison is a Central Prison where convicts from 4 adjoining districts beside Amravati are kept - i.e. Yavatmal, Washim, Akola, and Buldhana. For the convenience of regular meetings with their imprisoned parents, we try to place the children in institutions in Amravati itself. There are children who have no close family members outside prison and such parents insist on admitting their children into institutions in Amravati district only. Convincing the Committee members as well as the institutional authorities in this regard at times becomes difficult. In the year 2005, we have admitted 11 and 2 children into an institution in Yavatmal and Washim respectively. Here, for the convenience of keeping a follow-up with these cases, we have appointed 2 social work students as volunteers to assist us in this regard.

It has been observed that the children face a lot of adjustment problems during the initial days of their stay in the institutions. Adjustment is easier for the children who are young of age and have been with their mothers in prison for some time, than with those who are of adolescent age and have been at home until they were institutionalized. This is due to the negligence of the child on the part of the one parent (be it mother or father) who is handling the family's situation alone, or the relatives in whose care the children were. Due to the arrest of the parent/s, the family's lifestyle gets disturbed whereby there is no control over the children following an irregular schedule. So it becomes difficult for such children to adjust to the routine schedule of the institution, who have become accustomed to the freedom when at home. We cannot expect good academic performance from these children. But since one of our objectives is to prevent the children from getting onto the wrong path through our help for shelter, education, it is thus achieved to a certain extent. Provision of a good social environment and contact with the appropriate persons helps in bringing about a change in the personality of the children.

During our first year of work with the children, we would get in writing from the parent/s in the prison permitting us to take the temporary custody of the child for his placement in an institution. In certain cases, there would be an urgent need to take custody of the children. And time would go in collection of the required documents for the child's admission into the institution or school, conducting an enquiry of the case, putting up the case before the Child Welfare Committee for orders of admission into the institution. Thus, the question of temporary shelter would arise before us, whereby this was handled by keeping the children in the homes of staff members. Having stayed in a favorable and different environment from their family atmosphere, the children either refused to stay thereafter in the institutions or faced adjustment problems and tried to run away from the institutions. On having observed this, we now try to initially complete the required procedures and then call the families with the children on either the day of admission into institution/school or on the day when they need to be produced before the Child Welfare Committee.

In regard to tackling problems of children while in the institutions, a follow-up is kept through our worker's weekly visits to meet them, providing them with the necessities like soap, toothpaste, clothes, educational equipment, etc. These visits assist the children in viewing the workers as a caring person, voicing out their feelings before the worker, being counseled by the worker, thus ultimately helping the child adjust to the new institutional environment. Gradually, these visits are reduced from weekly to fortnightly visits to monthly visits as per the adjustment progress of the child. At the most, it takes three months in all for this process of helping the children settle in the institutions.

One of the reasons for the adjustment problems of the children is the branding of these children by the institutional staff as "an offender's child". This mentally affects adolescent children than the younger ones. Here, we find an important need for the sensitization of the institutional authorities or respective persons who come in association with the children during their stay in the institutions. There is a need to view these children as different from the other children coming from normal families. For e.g. a child going to visit the parent in the prison during his schools hours or without informing the institutional authorities is considered as running away from the institution. And on the return of the child, he/she is punished as per their regular and general procedure. Little thought is given to the emotional feelings of the child who has had a disturbed family background and has been away from the parent for quite a long time.

We also arrange the children's meeting with their parents in prison. These meeting are our regular activity on humanitarian grounds. At a time, about 3-15 children are taken together from the institutions to the prison. The relationship developed by the organization with the prison staff and the services extended to the prisoners has helped in any ways. One of the advantages of this is that the children are permitted to meet their parent/s directly inside the prison, rather than the usual meeting room where the prisoners meet their families, relatives, and friends behind a barred door. The children are allowed to freely be with the parent/s for about 20-30 minutes after which they are taken back to the institution by our staff. This meeting of the children and the parent/s is an emotional scene to watch within the prison premises.

Soni, aged 7 years is presently admitted into a residential school. For continuous three years, she has secured 1st rank at her academic level. Soni was one of our first balwadi students when she was 4 years of age. She along with her two younger siblings had come into the prison when their mother was arrested due to the death of their paternal aunt. In the same case, her aged maternal grandparents, maternal aunt and her four children were also arrested.

There were total 12 children in the prison at that time, out of which 10 would be attending our Balwadi. These children had to initially trained in regard to the basic upkeep of their clothes, eating habits, sitting in the class, cleanliness, etc. Close supervision due to the less number of children and individual attention being given by the teacher to the children helped in a good moldings of their personality.

When Soni was 5 years of age we had to shift her from the prison as per the rules. And due to no family member or relative to take custody or care of her, we had to admit her into a residential school, where her needs of shelter and education were taken care of. Her adjustment and growth in this institution was quite positive which reflected through the good academic performance for continuous three years.

Rahul 14 years whose father is serving life sentence in the Amravati Central Prison for murder of his sister-in law since last 5 year. After conviction of his father their family support collapse. They have only 3 acres of land, which is not cultivated since his imprisonment. Rahuls mother was looking after the children and his 75 year- old grand mother, as there is no male member in the family. At that time Rahul was studying in 6th standards in the village school. Because of this development he drop out from the school along with his school going sister. His mother was working in others farm for the livelihood of the family. Thereafter his mother died in a incidence in the village. Now the family did not had any support for livelihood.

Now the children were without support and the only elder member in the family is their grandmother aged about 75 years who needs support for her. The children including Rahul lived on support from villagers in kind of food grain and cooked food. Education is far away for them as two-time meal is their immediate concern. We admitted Rahul in residential school in Chikhaldara and his sister in an institution in Chandurabazar.

The boy had adjustment problem in the institution because of his hot-tempered nature. Therefore he was branded as children of murderer by institution staff. He was upset because of environment in the institution and treatment of the staff. His academic performance was also declining in the first year. Therefore we had decided to shift the boy in other institution where he will have positive environment. Now he is admitted in a school in Amravati city and made arrangement for hostel. There is improvement in his behavior and academic performance.