A study of non-government child welfare services in Taiwan focused on children in need of child welfare service intervention

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore the characteristics of children in need of child welfare service intervention in Taiwan from the perspective of child welfare non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and to seek pathways to enhance such children's rights and well-being.Over the last two decades, Taiwanese society has experienced rapid changes in its economic development as well as population. Along with these changes, child welfare services in Taiwan have emerged and undergone a series of institutional and legislative reforms. More recently, there have been an increasing number of children using a range of child welfare services in Taiwanese society. Taiwan has specific child welfare services for children in need.The issue of children in need has received a lot of discussion in child welfare literature mainly in the Western contexts; however, the child welfare literature is under-developed in children in need in the Taiwanese context, particularly from the perspective of child welfare NGOs.The present study deals with this gap through examining the characteristics of children in need and responses of child welfare NGOs to children in need in a specific cultural and social context. This qualitative study was underpinned by a social constructionist epistemology and incorporated an ecological approach. Two data sources, documents and in-depth, semi-structured interviews, were used in this study. Twenty-six legal and policy documents, including legislation, annual reports and web pages, were purposively sampled from three child welfare NGOs in Taiwan. Thirteen participants, including seven senior executive officers and six frontline workers, were recruited from the same three NGOs to participate in individual, in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The documents that were written in Chinese were translated and the interviews were transcribed and translated into English before data analysis. All analysed data were managed with a qualitative data software (NVivo) to handle the analysis tasks.ii The results of the study pointed out three key dimensions of care-giving arrangementsphysical, educational and emotional care-giving arrangements-for children in need. The diversity of family background, economic disadvantages, and vulnerable primary caregivers are the three main issues identified in this study that result in the challenges of the family to respond to children's needs. Child welfare NGOs in Taiwan recognised that, along with child protection services, such as placement arrangements, it is also important to offer services and resources, such as short-term financial assistance, to support children in need and their families.The study traced the emergence of non-government child welfare services in Taiwanese society and their importance of child welfare NGOs in the delivery of child welfare services on the ground. The study also argues that the differences of viewpoints, in particular with regard to resource distribution and expected responsibility between the state, child welfare NGOs and the family, create specif...

Children’s rights in Taiwan: A qualitative study on social workers’ perspectives

“…There has been a persistent tendency to see children in Taiwan as vulnerable and requiring protection (Feng et al, 2012). The 1973 Child Welfare Act was the first social welfare measure in Taiwan (Hsu, 2016). The 1989 UNCRC resulted in the first amendment of the 1973 Child Welfare Act in 1993 (Shee, 1998).…”

“…Nevertheless, over the last 30 years, the Taiwanese government has worked to translate the UNCRC into policies and services. For instance, the passage of the UNCRC in 1989 led to the amendment of the Child Welfare Law in 1993 and then to the passage of the Child and Youth Welfare Act 2003 (Hsu, 2016). Article 3 of the UNCRC forms the basis of Article 4 of the 1993 amendment to the Child Welfare Law, which states that the best interests of children should be the priority in child welfare cases (Global Legal Information Network Legislative Yuan, R.O.C., 2020).…”