中華心理衛生協會

Purpose: The child welfare system is entrusted with protecting children from maltreatment by their parents or other caregivers. If families who have fallen below a minimally sufficient level for child rearing and whose children therefore suffer from abuse or neglect, family preservation services are implemented to protect our vulnerable children. If families who temporarily cannot maintain a minimally of child-rearing environment in the home, out-of-home placement is the last resort. Children may be placed with relatives, in a foster family, in a group home, or in a children's institution. Though there are different settings within our foster care system, residential group care is frequently regarded as the last alternative for the children in care. Institutions for children are always thought to place the children at greater risk for abuse than family foster care. Thus, child and youth protective workers are confused with the choices of quality-based or quantity-based residential care. This article deals with the barriers of child protection workers to achieve effective placement decision-making. Methods: In order to reach the above goals, the researcher used focus group method to collect the data. Ten focus groups were held and tape-recorded after consents had been obtained from all participants. Fifty-two workers were voluntarily interviewed in this study. All the participants were graduated from social work related departments. Among 52 informants, 15 workers were responsible for the management of the residential agencies; the others were social workers whose roles were to protect the children at risk. Data were transcribed from the tapes and analyzed by the researchers. Analysis was held by extracting themes from evidence and organizing data to present a coherent, consistent picture. Results: Child protection workers were often confronted with the difficult decisions of whether to leave children at inadequate placement or other least detrimental alternative. The informants faced the dilemma to make the correct choices. The limited residential resources were the main causes. Being lack of regulations to promote the standards of residential placements was another. For the workers using viewpoints of quantity-based priority, some dilemmas were emerged. Workers were difficult to find adequate funding to place the children into proper settings. The unavailability of local residential placements forced worker to choose some institutions, even though these residential facilities were low quality or might hurt our children in care. Worrying the possible negative response by the placement settings, workers were inclined to hold some truths of the clients to avoid being rejected. The collaboration and trustworthiness between different agencies were thus influenced and had great negative impacts on the following contact. For the child protection workers, the problem of lacking adequate placements is existed. It is hard to have some extra expectation to the residential placements. The relationships between social service departments and institutions were co-dependent and obscure. Lack of sufficient placement resources was a dilemma for the child welfare workers. If the situations remained the same, it's difficult for workers to take the best interests of the child as a priority. For the workers using viewpoints of quality-based priority, transfer the placed child to more adequate institutions or support family function were solutions. However, the workers encountered the same problem. The availability of the children’s home was scarce. Where did child welfare workers place their child was a struggling issue. Current support system towards families was also limited, which decreased worker's motivation to preserve the families. The heavy workload of child protection workers made them incapable of helping the families. Our child protection system was unfriendly with our workers, our clients and the whole families. There were many barriers that kept our child protection workers from making better placement choice. Conclusions: Some implications are discussed to develop a coordinated social service delivery to help the children in need. The core value of ”for the best interest of the child” was existed among workers when they made their placement decisions. However, ”the best interest of the workers”, ”the best interest of institutions” or ”the best interest of the state” was interchanged. Child protection workers are forced to make their placement decision. The increased numbers of out-of-home placements need to be taken into consideration seriously. The provisions of family foster care and institutional care are important if we want to reach the goals of helping those children in need. By the time, high quality services are also emphasized for the placed children. The regulation of the residential care, the qualification and training of the staff, the parenting style and culture of the institution are all critical elements influencing the quality of the children's home. Finally, multiple-dimensional family service programs should be examined and reorganized in the future.