CARA holds Western Zone workshop in Pune to boost special needs adoption
Synopsis
CARA's fourth Western Zone consultative workshop in Pune pulled together 150 stakeholders from 74 districts — medical officers, child protection units, and adoption agencies — in a rare multi-sectoral push to unblock the adoption pipeline for children with special needs. The scale signals that the Centre is treating this not as a one-off event but as a structural reform effort.
Key Takeaways
CARA held its Fourth Regional Consultative Workshop for the Western Zone in Pune on 3 September .
Over 150 stakeholders from more than 74 districts participated, representing Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, and the UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.
CARA CEO Bhavna Saxena stressed the need for sustained, coordinated efforts to increase adoption of children with special needs.
Discussions covered medical assessments, legal requirements, financial considerations, grievance redressal, and inter-departmental coordination.
Maharashtra Minister Aditi Varda Sunil Tatkare addressed participants via video message.
Workshop findings are expected to inform CARA's broader national adoption policy and outreach strategy.
The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) organised its Fourth Regional Consultative Workshop for the Western Zone in Pune on 3 September, bringing together over 150 stakeholders from more than 74 districts to strengthen family-based care and adoption of children with special needs. The event marks CARA's continued push under the Ministry of Women and Child Development to build a more robust adoption ecosystem across India's western region.
What the Workshop Covered
Bhavna Saxena, CEO and Member Secretary of CARA, addressed participants and underscored the need for sustained, collaborative action to increase adoption rates for children with special needs. She noted that CARA's series of outreach and consultative initiatives has progressively strengthened the national adoption framework.
Deliberations spanned the current status of special needs adoptions across the Western Zone, exchange of successful case studies and practices, and identification of systemic challenges affecting adoption and rehabilitation. Discussions also covered medical assessments, legal and procedural requirements, financial considerations, grievance redressal, and inter-departmental coordination.
Key Stakeholders and Regional Reach
The workshop drew officials and practitioners from State Adoption Resource Agencies (SARAs), Specialised Adoption Agencies (SAAs), Child Care Institutions (CCIs), District Child Protection Units (DCPUs), Chief Medical Officers (CMOs), and medical, healthcare, and child protection professionals. The breadth of participation reflected the Western Zone's wide administrative reach, which spans Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, and the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.
Maharashtra Minister for Women and Child Development Aditi Varda Sunil Tatkare addressed stakeholders through a video message, signalling state-level engagement with the initiative.
Focus on Child Protection and Healthcare Coordination
A recurring theme across the workshop was the need to tighten coordination between child protection systems and healthcare infrastructure. According to the official statement, particular emphasis was placed on ensuring timely medical assessments, appropriate support structures, and smoother procedural facilitation for prospective adoptive families of children with special needs.
The multi-sectoral dialogue format — bringing together legal, medical, and child welfare professionals under one platform — is designed to surface bottlenecks that single-department reviews typically miss. Notably, this is the fourth such regional workshop in CARA's ongoing consultative series, suggesting an institutionalised rather than ad hoc approach to reform.
What Comes Next
The insights and recommendations gathered from the Pune workshop are expected to feed into CARA's broader policy and outreach strategy for improving adoption outcomes for children with special needs. With the Western Zone alone covering more than 74 districts, coordinated follow-through at the district and state levels will be critical to translating workshop outcomes into measurable change.
Point of View
Legal, and administrative channels rather than a lack of willing families. CARA's decision to run a fourth regional workshop, and to pull in CMOs and DCPUs alongside adoption agencies, suggests the authority is aware that the bottleneck is coordination, not just awareness. The real measure of success will not be workshop attendance but whether district-level follow-through actually reduces the time from referral to placement for children with complex needs. That data, if CARA publishes it, will tell the real story.
NationPress
4 Sept 2026
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the CARA Western Zone workshop held in Pune?
It is the Fourth Regional Consultative Workshop organised by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) for the Western Zone, held in Pune on 3 September. The workshop brought together over 150 stakeholders from 74 districts to strengthen adoption processes for children with special needs.
Which states and territories fall under CARA's Western Zone?
The Western Zone covers Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, and the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. The zone has a wide geographical and administrative reach, spanning more than 74 districts.
What issues were discussed at the Pune adoption workshop?
Participants deliberated on medical assessments, legal and procedural requirements, financial considerations, grievance redressal, and inter-departmental coordination. A key focus was tightening coordination between child protection and healthcare systems to speed up adoption facilitation.
Who is Bhavna Saxena and what did she say at the workshop?
Bhavna Saxena is the CEO and Member Secretary of CARA. At the workshop, she emphasised the need for rigorous and coordinated efforts to expand opportunities for children with special needs to receive permanent family-based care, and credited CARA's outreach initiatives with strengthening the adoption ecosystem.
Why does adoption of children with special needs need a dedicated push in India?
Children with special needs face longer wait times and lower adoption rates compared to other children in the system, partly due to gaps in medical assessment, legal complexity, and limited awareness among prospective families. CARA's regional workshops aim to address these barriers through multi-sectoral dialogue and coordinated policy action.
