Adoption in Korea: current status and future prospects

This article examines the current status of adoption in Korea and discusses the issues that must be addressed for future development. The nature of adoption has changed dramatically in the last 50 years, and continues to change in Korea. If the first half of modern adoption history were about finding and providing permanent homes for war orphans and children abandoned out of destitution, the second half saw increasing demand for adoption to function as a key component of the continuum of child welfare services providing care for children who need protection and care outside their home. However, responding to this change has been a challenge over the years. Based on the analysis of recent trends of the child welfare system and adoption in Korea, this article reveals that there are significant barriers in the path to improving adoption, especially domestic adoption, so that it can be considered a realistic placement option for children who need protection and care in Korea. Suggestions for the future direction of reforming adoption policy and practice are given.     

Privatising Foster Care: The UK Experience within an International Context

Foster placements for children in care in the UK are being increasingly provided by non‐governmental organizations. However, although local authorities are purchasing almost one third of their required placements from these external agencies, the UK has not yet followed the examples of other English speaking countries. In parts of the USA and Australia all fostering and other child welfare services have been wholly outsourced or transferred from the public to private and non‐profit organizations. A number of these initiatives have been independently evaluated and some of their findings resonate with what seems to be happening in the UK. This article explores these but also other factors which appear to distinguish the policy and practice of foster care in the UK from those of the USA and Australia. Using theory related to the privatization of welfare and relevant domestic and international research, the article examines the development of external commissioning of foster care in Britain. In the light of changing law, ideology and policy, the article concludes by speculating on how the future of fostering and wider child welfare provision in the UK may look, at a time of political change and economic austerity.     

Parents' involvement in care order decisions: a cross‐country study of front‐line practice

This article examines parents' involvement in care order decision‐making in four countries at one particular point in the care order process, namely, when the child protection worker discusses with the parents his or her considerations regarding child removal. The countries represent different child welfare systems with Norway and Finland categorized as ‘family service systems’ and the USA as a ‘child protection system’, with England somewhere in between. The focus is on whether the forms and intensity of involvement are different in these four countries and whether the system orientation towards family services or child protection influences practice in the social welfare agencies with parents. Involvement is studied in terms of providing information to parents, collecting information from parents and ensuring inclusion in the decision‐making processes. A vignette method is employed in a survey with 768 responses from child protection workers in four countries. The findings do not show a consistent pattern of difference regarding parental involvement in care order preparations that align with the type of child welfare system in which staff work. The goal in each child welfare system is to include parents, but the precise ways in which it is carried out (or not) vary. Methodological suggestions are given for further studies.     

Childcare Expansion in East Asia: Changing Shape of the Institutional Configurations in Japan and South Korea

The provision of childcare in Korea and Japan has traditionally been intensively conducted within the family. Recent social and demographic transformations have been profound and these have resulted in significant policy changes in both countries. This study examines the institutional configurations of the provisions of childcare among the state, market, and family and how they have changed in Korea and Japan over time. The institutional configurations were quantitatively evaluated based on an estimation of care time. Our findings suggest that care time provided in market and state facilities has become much larger in Japan than in Korea. In both countries, the care time provided by market facilities is much larger than in state facilities. Over the years, both market and state provisions of care have increased in Korea whereas state care provisions have decreased and market provisions have increased in Japan. However, this does not mean that the centralization of the family in the provision of childcare has shifted. In fact, the care time within the family has increased in both countries, suggesting that Korea and Japan have become more caring welfare states.     

Factors influencing resubstantiation of child neglect in South Korea: A comparison with other maltreatment cases

While a high prevalence of child neglect cases has been reported by Child Protective Services (CPS) in Western countries, child neglect cases reported to South Korea's Child Protection Agency (CPA) present different trends than those in Western countries. Nevertheless, child neglect is an understudied area within child welfare. Thus, a need exists to investigate the unique characteristics of child neglect cases substantiated by the CPA in Korea. This study investigates the unique characteristics of child neglect cases and examines how factors associated with the resubstantiation of these cases differ from those of other maltreatment cases. Using CPA administrative data, we employed a multilevel discrete‐time hazard analysis to analyze the risk and protective factors associated with the resubstantiation of child neglect cases and compared the results with other maltreatment cases. In both cases, younger children, perpetrators with alcohol problems, families receiving welfare, and months of agency operation were associated with resubstantiation. For child neglect cases, the provision of child and parent services, and CPAs located in metropolitan area were protective factors that reduced the risk of resubstantiation. The finding in this study highlights the need to expand the provision of services to child neglect cases to prevent resubstantiation.     

Counting family support

Preventative family support approaches are positioned as central to child welfare policy reforms aiming to address the problems of relying upon investigation and out‐of‐home care as the main modes of intervention. Extensive claims are made for family support but relatively little is known about its scope, processes and impact. This study examines the provision of family support in one jurisdiction. A census‐type survey of family support services in one Australian state was conducted using a performance measurement framework in which inputs, outputs, processes and outcomes were measured. Family support services constituted a minor part of child welfare expenditure. They provided a narrow range of service types, and most families received short duration, low intensity services. Workers had difficulty identifying the specific child and family needs that were met by services. For family support to be a genuinely alternative response to concerns about the care of children, it must be capable of making an observable difference in the lives of families experiencing serious difficulties. The collection of aggregate performance data on family support would assist in understanding the nature and outcomes of service provision, as well as ensure family support is ‘counted’ in measurement‐orientated policy and budget processes.     

Child welfare policy and services in Korea

Over the past 20 years, the Korean government has developed child welfare laws to respond to an increasing number of child maltreatment cases and create a centralized child welfare delivery system. However, the system remains fragmented and under-developed due to a lack of understanding of child maltreatment and limited government support. Further, few studies have comprehensively reviewed the system. This study examines the Korean child welfare system, identifies challenges for child welfare policies and services, and discusses the implications for future policy; the results can be used to improve the safety, permanency, and well-being of children and families in Korea. The analysis shows that the government has prioritized family preservation over removal from families, even in substantiated cases of abuse. However, ensuring the safety of children in Korea will require not only working to preserve families but also developing and implementing better options for in-home services and out-of-home placement.     

The relationship between social support and acculturative stress from cultural adaptation of people displaced from North Korea to South Korea

This study analysed the relationship between social support, financial independence, self-enhancement bias, and stress from cultural adaptation. For an empirical analysis, the data from 225 people displaced from North Korea were analysed. Our results suggest that social support has a positively significant effect on financial independence and self-enhancement bias; furthermore, financial independence has been shown to reduce stress from cultural adaptation. Therefore, social support reduces stress from cultural adaptation through financial independence. These results demonstrate that the social support of South Korea is very important for people displaced from North Korea in terms of their safely establishing settled living. In addition, considering the fact that the status of China is rising in international society, the results of the present study provide important insights into the provision of psychological stability to people displaced from North Korea.     

Vulnerable children's rights to participation,protection, and provision: The process of defining the problem in Swedish child and family welfare

This study addresses the relationship between children's participation and the protection and provision offered to them by social services in Sweden. It applies a theoretical framework for analysing child welfare that is anchored in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. How child participation may affect child protection and provision is examined empirically using case documentation from 2 municipalities. The main finding is that when children are not given voice or opportunity to influence the framing of what “the problem” is, the design of protection and care tends to be poorly matched to the actual problems documented in the child investigation and vice versa; when children can influence framing, this is associated with well‐matched protection and care. This suggests that traditional child welfare ethos, to the effect that protection should be of such overriding concern that children even should be protected from participation, is misguided. The study further illustrates the intrinsic problems with the family orientation of Swedish social services and its reliance on partnership with parents, which makes it difficult to live up to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Incorporating child participation into existing service models can transform Swedish social services to an augmented child‐focused system that by ensuring participation also promotes protection and provision.     

Towards a better understanding of welfare policy development in developing nations: a case study of South Korea's pension system

This study examines the developmental trajectory of South Korea's public pension programme from 1973 to 1999. Its theoretical aim is to use the South Korean case to verify the partial relevance of existing welfare state theories and to develop a more incorporated theoretical framework in which the evolution of welfare in nations other than affluent Western democracies can be understood. For this purpose, the South Korean case holds a unique strategic advantage as a result of the significant democratisation of the political regime that has taken place. South Korea additionally possesses several qualities usually considered critical for the development of a welfare state, such as economic development, expansion of civil society and globalisation.     

The Changing Focus of Child Maltreatment Research and Practice Within Psychology

Professions functionally define a field by the types of behaviors or circumstances to which they direct their attention and efforts. For psychology and mental health professionals concerned with child maltreatment, child sexual abuse has been the dominant interest over the past two decades and has been virtually synonymous with child maltreatment within psychology. This is discrepant from the broader scope of child maltreatment, as seen both in child welfare populations and in the general population. In child welfare, sexual abuse is an important but nonetheless relatively less frequent issue. Child neglect and physical abuse dominate child welfare caseloads, and historically always have. The disconnect between the interests of mental health professionals and child welfare appears to be waning, both in terms of dialogue within psychology and apportioning of research resources. This article examines what this emerging change may mean for practice and research in terms of the changing nature of populations involved, different types and locations of services, different roles and new multidisciplinary alliances.     

'Race', Ethnicity and Child Welfare: A Fine Balancing Act

Western multi-racial societies continue to grapple with the‘best’ and ‘most desirable’ way to integrateracial/cultural minorities in mainstream society. The fieldof child welfare provides a fertile terrain in which to testthe prevailing debates and discussions. This paper exploressome key issues in ethnicity and child welfare and the implicationsof these for minority families and children, and the socialwork profession.     

COMMUNITY-BASED SERVICES AND THE FRAGMENTATION OF PROVISION: A CASE STUDY OF HOME AND COMMUNITY CARE SERVICES IN A SUBURBAN COMMUNITY

Although the use of non-government organisations to provide assistance has long been part of Australian welfare history, the principles of community-based provision have only recently been adopted as part of the mainstream philosphy of service provision. This article examines the association between the expansion of community-based provision and the fragmentation of service provision using information drawn from a study of the provision of long-term care for a group of primarily elderly people through the Home and Community Care Program (HACC) and related provisions in a suburban community. The account focuses on the structure of formal service provisions, identifying organisational features which directly affect the operation of the system of local services, fragmenting the assistance made available. First, the organisations providing care are all of relatively recent origin and their operation continues to reflect many of the characteristics associated with their initial establishment. Second, the organisations involved are essentially hybrid bodies, being the product of both national/State programs and local initiatives. A number of tensions and conflicts arising from this characteristic are discussed. Third, service providing agencies tend to be highly specialised, with the consequence that the main division of labour is between, rather than within, organisations. Finally, the system of funding and administration has tended to orient agencies vertically, towards the source of funding, limiting their flexibility and capacity to develop horizontal patterns of cooperation with other services in the local area. Overall, the emergent system of services appears to be characterised by a large number of small organisations organised under a range of different auspice bodies, struggling to preserve their own autonomy and to operate within an insecure and continually changing policy environment. Recognising that reforms are likely, a number of broad alternatives to privatisation arc canvassed in the final section of the article.     

Multiple Family Group Therapy for Families with Children Placed in Out-Of-Home Care in a Chinese Context

Since the 1980s, the family-centered approach has been widely adopted in the west (e.g., the United States) as an approach to serving children living in an out-of-home care context. In comparison, in Hong Kong, out-of-home care services tend to be child-centered and child-protection oriented. This article (1) examines the child welfare service, specifically out-of-home care services, in Hong Kong and (2) makes the case for integrating family-centered out-of-home care services for children. Three vignettes are presented that demonstrate the use of Multiple Family Group Therapy (MFGT) to promote family-centered practice. The article concludes with a discussion of challenges and recommendations related to a shift to family-centered practice.     

Lithuania's children's policy in the period of transition

The article investigates the welfare regime of the free Lithuanian Republic from the perspective of children's policy. The main principles of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child – child protection, child provision and child participation – serve as indicators for the level of child orientation. The article analyses legal and institutional issues related to the implementation of the Convention in Lithuania in the first decade of Independence 1990–2001. Furthermore, it compares Lithuanian policy with the three welfare regimes identified by Esping-Andersen. Our results indicate that Lithuanian policy shows a low level of child orientation and that the Lithuanian welfare regime does not correspond to any of the welfare regimes in Esping-Andersen's typology. Lithuania still shows traits from the former Soviet regime. The new liberal extreme market orientation is not modified by social support institutions, and is combined with conservative ideologies on women and family.     

A qualitative study on participants’ perceptions of child development accounts in Korea

ABSTRACT

In 2007, Korea implemented Child Development Accounts (CDAs) for institutionalised children in child welfare systems. Since then, the target group and a matching cap of CDAs in Korea have evolved. The target group expanded to include poor children receiving welfare, whereas the matching cap increased from KRW 30,000 (US$26.53) to KRW 40,000 (US$35.38), which is matched at a 1:1 rate. Despite the expansion, there is little empirical evidence examining the extent to which CDAs have influenced the life of participants. Using a content analysis method with a sample (N = 22), this study examines how CDAs have changed children’s mindsets, saving habits, education, future planning and sponsorship. The findings suggest that CDAs have multiple positive influences on children. This study concludes with policy implications for the inclusive and progressive development of CDAs in Korea.     

The gender impact of National Pension reforms in the Republic of Korea

This article examines the gender impact of National Pension reforms in the Republic of Korea. In 2007, the Korean government introduced an income-tested basic old-age pension scheme paying flat-rate benefits. It also introduced credited pension coverage periods for child rearing and changed entitlement conditions for divorcees and widows and widowers. This paper examines the impact of these policy changes for individuals with shorter working lives and lower wages, for survivors and for the traditional social protection role played by the family in Korea. Findings indicate that the reforms have some positive features. However, the reforms still offer better value for those with higher earnings and an uninterrupted employment history, both of which are more characteristic of male workers. Moreover, the important income security role played by the family is still strongly embedded in the provisions and the protection available to survivors remains weak.     

Crowding Out or Welfare Promotion? How Foreign Aid Affects Social Expenditures in Latin American Welfare Systems

Foreign assistance constitutes a significant share of government revenue in many low‐ and middle‐income economies and is targeted at poverty reduction and the promotion of social and economic well‐being. This study therefore examines fiscal responses by Latin American welfare states to the inflow of such aid. As a form of external non‐tax revenue, aid can function as a substitution for public welfare expenditure, with a crowding out effect being the likely outcome. This article investigates whether overall aid and aid that is particularly targeted at the social sector substitutes public welfare provision and, if so, whether it also substitutes its function. A time‐series cross‐section analysis of 19 Latin American countries for the period 1980–2008 provides limited support for the assumption that foreign aid payments influence the welfare budget. It is only the health care sector in middle‐income countries which experiences a small decrease in expenditures. Social security and education expenditures are not affected.     

The Negotiation of Child Care and Employment Demands Among Low-Income Parents

Low-income working mothers face significant child care challenges. These challenges are particularly salient in an era of welfare reform, when welfare recipients are under increased pressure to find a job. The current study examines how child care demands are negotiated for an urban sample of low-income mothers. The sample includes a racially and ethnically diverse group of 57 respondents with and without welfare experience who are mothering children under 13 years of age and working in entry-level jobs. Findings suggest that respondents seek arrangements that are affordable, convenient, and safe, and informal arrangements may be most compatible with convenience and cost considerations. Informal care is not universally available, however, andmay be less reliable. Implications for child care policy are discussed.