A study in Welfare Provision and Need of Pre-school Middle-severe Mental Handicapped

• Main Authors: Su Jen Liu, 劉素珍
• Other Authors: Yuan Shie Hwang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/74377045614759792432

碩士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 社會政策與社會工作學系 === 94 === Abstract Children are one of the minority groups, especially the children with mental retardation. It is hard for them to obtain social resources on their own and voice their needs. As the caring for them is lifelong task, should be there no formal resources interfere in; the caring becomes the parents’ lifelong burdens and suffering, which are hardly to get rid of. Thus, it is not only family but also the society and nation should play their proper roles in the service system of caring mental retarded children. However, due to the insufficient related researches about welfare supply for preschool mentally retarded children in our nation, which not only caused the failure of concealing the difficult position of those families but also made the design of welfare policy and welfare services supply unable to fulfill the actual needs. This study adopted qualitative research as well as stratified random sampling. The subjects of this study were from Chia-yi county, which have been sorted into two groups: the group that demand welfare services (representatives of caregivers and parents of the families with moderate or severe mental retarded preschool children); and the supply group (those who supply welfare services and design welfare policy). In two groups contain four different roles. The in-depth interview was used to gather the related information for analyze and the purpose of this study was: (1) to explore the needs of moderate or severe mental retarded preschool children (including the children with multi retardation) as well as of the families (especially the caregiver) (2) to conceive and analyze what factors affect supply and demand of formal services for the preschool children with moderate and severe mental retardation. (3) to investigate the compatibility and incompatibility between current services policy and demands, and the factors influence the impartibility (4) in order to minimize the incompatibility between supply and demand, review the current services supply system and provide suggestions for future practices and policy design. Results of this study are as followings: 1. Supply aspect: supplier mainly focus on social welfare, financial supports, hospital resources and education placement. However, most of the welfare demanders concern more for financial problems while the rehabilitation is the common need of mental retardation children. It is obvious that the main caregivers have different expectation for education placement as the retarded children have varied degree and level of disabilities. Moreover, the role of parents was confused since it has changed from demander into services supplier. 2. Demand aspect: The civil welfare supplier mainly offers day care and makes efforts in inclusive education; the welfare design of public department is demand-oriented and aims to present the demands in quantity. However, the parents who received inadequate support and in urgent need of support have joined the line of services supply. According to the fore mentioned results, this study reviews the current related services supply system and thus the following issues were generated for discussion, including: (1) what are the factors affect the formal services supply system? (2) The different point of views between the service suppliers and the people demand supports (3) Who is the subject of inclusive education and how to carry out (4) “Family responsibility” should be whose responsibility (5) What is “social responsibility” (6) Do the main caregivers have the right to choose (7) is “user oriented” existed? (8) Is the rule of “no repeated relief” appropriate? (9) Why the apparent incompatibility between supply and demand has being neglected? According to previous discussion, this study has generated related suggestions in three aspects: (1) Policy: adjust the “no repeated relief” policy.  Increase the administrative coordination among counties in our nation.  Provide the related financial aid information for families.  Increase the alternative placement services.  Simplify the application process.  Improve teachers’ profession abilities of special education. (2)Practices: Help parents to accept the retarded children and the environments. Provide “demand oriented” services  Provide more internal disciplines for teachers within organization. (3) Academics: Definition of responsibilities of society, family and caregivers  Subjects and meanings of inclusive education the role that informal support plays. As time, manpower, and researcher’s ability, and study scope were limited, the fore mentioned suggestions have generated. Hopefully, the future researches will be able to come up with more microscopically and analytic points of view based on this study. Finally, it will make the study results easier to be achieved in policy aspects and practices aspects.