Responding to a report on Monday that a one-year-old boy had allegedly been abused to death by a licensed in-home childcare provider, the Taipei Department of Social Welfare yesterday said that it is planning reforms, while the Ministry of Health and Welfare said it would hold a review meeting on Friday.
The boy, whose household registration is in New Taipei City, was placed with an in-home childcare provider in Taipei after his single mother was imprisoned and his grandmother asked the local social welfare department to put him up for adoption.
The department referred the case to the Child Welfare League Foundation (CWLF), which temporarily placed the boy in the home of a contracted caregiver surnamed Liu (劉) while it tried to find him an adoptive family. The boy was allegedly abused to death by Liu in December last year.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The CWLF in a statement on Monday expressed “shock and regret” over the boy’s death and extended its condolences and apologies to his family.
The foundation said it had contracted a licensed in-home childcare provider with whom it had worked once before to temporarily look after the boy in September last year, and CWLF social workers had checked in on him in September, October and November.
Social workers rescheduled their monthly visit in December after the caregiver said another child who she was caring for was ill.
The CWLF said it received the “tragic news” of the boy’s death at the end of that month, pledging to cooperate with prosecutors investigating the case.
The department on Monday said that Liu received her caretaking license in October 2022, and after the city’s in-home childcare service center received a report about the boy, it made a home visit within a month, according to regulations, but no abnormalities were found.
Describing the boy’s death as “infuriating, heartbreaking and sad,” Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) yesterday said the health ministry would look into the case and increase the frequency of visits to children under the age of two being looked after by an in-home childcare provider, as kids are unable to express themselves at that age.
According to the regulations, social workers are required to make at least four home visits to an in-home childcare provider within the first year of a child being placed with them, including once in the first 30 days.
The department yesterday said there are 4,272 in-home childcare providers registered in Taipei, 2,756 of whom are currently providing services.
As the actions of one of them were regrettably heartbreaking, it is planning reforms, the department said.
It said it has proposed more training than the 126 hours needed before someone can provide in-home child care and the 18 hours of on-the-job training required each year, as well as six to 10 hours of training for people who have a license, but have not looked after a child in a year.
It has also proposed that if children are placed under the care of an in-home childcare provider, home visits by social workers should be increased from once to twice a month.
As some parents require 24-hour daycare services, childcare inspections should be increased to six times per year, or once every two months, the department said, adding that it would launch an in-home childcare provider recommendation mechanism for parents looking for reputable caregivers.
It also said it would host support activities at the city’s in-home childcare service center so that caregivers could talk to each other and the center could observe them, and provide stress relief courses for childcare providers.
The ministry’s Social and Family Affairs Administration said it held an internal meeting yesterday, at which it decided that the necessity of putting a child up for adoption should be assessed by local governments and not be handed over entirely to civic groups.
Children should not be put up for adoption solely due to a family’s financial situation, and local governments should work closely with adoption facilitators and designate a dedicated social worker for each case, it said.
For children who have been placed in care prior to adoption or 24-hour daycare, especially orphans under the age of three, the government should implement stricter requirements for caregiver and increase the frequency of home visits, the administration said.
The central and local governments should work closely to monitor home visits and improve social workers’ ability to pick up on any abnormalities, it said.
It said it has invited specialists, local government officials and the CWLF to review the case on Friday.
Separately, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Liao Wei-hsiang (廖偉翔) said that a person found guilty of abuse resulting in death only faces five years to life in prison under Criminal Code.
He said he would propose amending the law to add the crime of “child murder,” which would be punishable by death, and revise the Criminal Code so that perpetrators of child abuse resulting in severe injury or death should not receive parole.
Additional reporting by CNA
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a