When foster mother Sung Kan-mei (
However, it was not as easy as she had thought it would be.
Sung said that the child hid in her room and attempted suicide numerous times.
One day, Sung and the child were grocery shopping when they saw a disabled person selling gum on the street. Sung gave the person some money and then seized on the opportunity to tell her foster child: "See how that person, even without arms and legs, cherishes his own life and strives to survive?"
Now, many years later, although home with her real mother, the child still contacts Sung and her family because she believes that they taught her about love and life.
Sung has taken in 20 foster children to date and has been a foster mother for more than 15 years.
It started when she was a babysitter, taking care of a child that belonged to a single-parent family.
The Taiwan Fund for Children and Families found out that the child was being neglected and decided to temporarily remove her from that environment. Since Sung was the babysitter at the time, the child was sent to her.
"I treated every foster child like a part of the family and I still keep in touch with them," Sung said. "I'm so happy to see that they are leading better lives and that we had provided them with few happy years during their childhood."
But of course, it is not only about changing the lives of foster children. The lives of foster families have also been changed.
Another foster mom, Huang Su-chu (
Huang's second son, who was very rebellious in the past, suddenly realized how well Huang treated children.
"My second son has become a new person because of the foster kids," Huang said. "He has realized through watching me take care of other kids, how much I care about him."
Huang Pi-hsia (黃碧霞), director of the Child Welfare Bureau under the Ministry of the Interior, told the Taipei Times that the bureau has been helping child victims of physical and sexual abuse to be relocated to foster families or agencies.
The nation's foster family system was modeled after the US system and has been operating since around 1983, Huang said.
"There are currently 1,398 foster families, which is quite a lot, but we are hoping to find and train more families," Huang said.
Usually social workers try to place an abused child in the home of a close relative, but if not, a foster family is the second choice, Huang said.
She said it was better for a child to be in a familiar environment, but usually younger children fit in better with a foster family.
Teenagers usually have a harder time getting used to a new family, so are often sent to foster agencies, she said, adding that the agencies are also always available in case of an emergency in which a child needs immediate protection.
Chou Su-ching (周素卿), a social worker who has worked at the Ta Tzu Children's Home in Kaohsiung County for almost 23 years, said that foster agencies offer a long-term "home" for children -- up until they are in college or graduate -- while foster families are temporary.
Many former foster children from the home who are now adults still go back and help with charity events and take care of other children, Chou said.
But foster mom Sung said that some children's homes allow family members to visit, and oftentimes mothers take their kids away.
The selection process for foster families has been tightened since an incident three months ago in Hsinchu County in which a family abused a foster child.
Foster parents must have stable jobs, no criminal records and undergo personality tests and training, Huang said.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS