When an abandoned girl is admitted, an NGO must create a documented trail that identifies her, records her condition, proves the admission was lawful, and starts her case. In practice that means an admission entry and an individual case file, her medical and age records, the legal and reporting documents that show she was received correctly, and her entry into the national child tracking system. These records are required under the Juvenile Justice Act and its rules, and they exist to protect the child and to keep the whole process open to inspection.
What records identify her and log the admission?
The first records establish who she is, as far as anyone knows, and prove when and how she was admitted. A child with no name and no history has to be given a documented identity, and that begins at the door.
The core admission records are:
- An entry in the admission and discharge register, with the date and time she was received.
- An individual case file opened in her name or reference number, the single folder that will hold everything about her.
- The details of the find: the exact place, date, and time she was found, and her apparent age and physical condition on arrival.
- Photographs taken at admission, which are needed both for identification and for the family tracing notice that follows.
The case file is the most important single record. Everything created later, medical notes, the social investigation, the Committee’s orders, is filed into it, so that at any point her whole story sits in one place.
What medical and age records are required?
Because her body and her age determine so much of what happens next, medical and age records are created at the start. An abandoned child is treated as a medico legal case, so a doctor examines her, and that examination is recorded.
The required medical and age records include:
- A medical examination report describing her condition when found and admitted.
- A health record or card that then tracks her treatment, immunisation, and growth in care.
- An age determination record, since her age decides which legal timelines and which type of placement apply to her.
For a newborn these records may note weight, feeding, and any signs of infection or exposure. For an older girl they may record injury or malnutrition. The point of writing it all down is twofold: to guide her care, and to preserve an independent account of the state she arrived in.
What legal records prove the admission was lawful?
A second set of records proves the NGO did not simply take a child, but received her through the proper legal channel. This is what separates a lawful admission from an unlawful one, and it is the paperwork an inspection looks at first.
These records are:
- The report to the police and to the child helpline, made within twenty-four hours of her being found.
- The order of the Child Welfare Committee placing her in the institution, since an NGO cannot lawfully admit a found child on its own authority.
- The newspaper advertisement of her photograph and particulars, published to trace her biological parents.
- The social investigation report into her circumstances, and the individual care plan setting out how she will be looked after.
Together these show a clear chain: found, reported, produced before the Committee, placed by its order, and a plan made for her. A safe, registered home for rescued girls is required to hold exactly this trail, because it is what makes the child’s presence there accountable rather than hidden.
What national and ongoing records must be kept?
Finally, the NGO must connect her to the national system and keep records for as long as she is in care. An abandoned or orphaned child is entered into the national tracking system run by CARA, the Central Adoption Resource Authority, which begins the formal path toward her being declared legally free for adoption if no family is found.
Alongside her own case file, a registered institution has to maintain the standing registers the law requires, which apply to every child in its care, such as:
- Registers of daily attendance, movement in and out, and visitors.
- An incident or complaint record.
- Stock, provisions, and account registers for how funds and supplies are used.
Her individual file is then updated throughout her stay, with medical entries, case reviews, and every order the Committee passes, until her case is closed by restoration to family, adoption, or long term placement. At a home such as a cradle for abandoned children, this record keeping is not bureaucracy for its own sake. It is the reason a child who arrived with nothing can later be traced, identified, adopted, or reunited, and the reason no rescued girl can quietly disappear from the record.