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
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