兒少保護個案安排親屬寄養安置歷程與照顧經驗之探討

Abstract

臺灣現行兒少福利法施行細述明目前家外安置以親屬家庭為首選順序，其次為寄養家庭，最後才為機構安置。然而，統計處資料卻顯示兒少被安置在親屬寄養家庭所占比例最低，且有逐年減少的趨勢，而機構安置的人數呈現逐年增加；另外，相關研究指出機構安置兒少的適應狀況不佳，而安置在寄養家庭的孩子則有流盪現象，且有些孩子長期被家外安置，導致這些孩子返家之路遙不可期。是故，本研究想探索影響決定使用親屬寄養的歷程，並從該個案親屬寄養照顧者的決定歷程中，了解其對親屬寄養的看法和照顧經驗，試圖釐清親屬寄養的阻力和助力因素。 本研究採質性研究，透過立意抽樣方式，共深度訪談4對兒少親屬寄養兒少的家長及社工員，本研究的發現包括親屬寄養的歷程、親屬寄養的挑戰及親屬寄養的優勢，說明如下： 由於本研究中的孩子大多是非婚生子女，以致本研究中親屬寄養的兒童大多是由母系祖父母提供照顧服務。經由社工員所安排的親屬寄養歷程，不僅是社工員單向的考量和評估，其實可以說是一連串互動的協商過程，最先被考量是親屬家庭的意願，其次為社工員的偏好，最後才為原生家庭意願考量，透過三方面的協商與同意才能配對成功。然而，親屬寄養會面臨兩大主要挑戰，分別為親屬寄養中親屬家庭與原生家庭的界限不清，將影響安置兒童的安全性與穩定性；其次是親屬寄養經常被視為親屬的照顧責任而不給予親屬相當的寄養費用，將影響親屬照顧兒童的經濟支撐力和永續性（permanency）。無論如何，親屬寄養對於安置的兒童確有其獨特的優勢，例如兒童對於寄養處所的適應性與穩定性較高，可以減少兒童與原生家庭分離的害怕與恐懼等負面情緒，也可減緩其對生活變動的不安全感，更讓兒童對親屬家庭產生歸屬感，逐漸與親屬逐漸建立依附關係。 根據研究發現，本研究者提出下列幾個建議，在政策的層次上，建議政府推動國外行之已久的家庭小組會議（Family Group Conferences），藉以促成更多的親屬寄養安置，在實務的層次上，建議實務工作建立一套友善親屬寄養的工作流程、發展親屬寄養家庭的支持性服務和配備社工員有關親屬寄養的專業知能。

According to Children and Youth Welfare Act, kinship foster care should be the preferred choice when out-of-home placement is necessary, them followed with foster family care and institutional care. However, the official statistics indicated that kinship foster care has the lowest proportion among out-of-home placements. Moreover, more and more children and youth are placed in institutions for the past few years. According to related literatures, placing children and youth for foster care is to protect, but has short- and long-term consequences at the same time. For instance, among placement choices, children placed for institutional care have the poorest outcome in terms of social adjustment. But, those who placed in foster care families sometime encounter unstably drifting problem. Worst of all, the longer the children stayed in out-of-home placement, they are less likely to go home for reunification. This study intended to explore how children were placed in kinship foster care in terms of decision-making, care experience, and possible obstacles and advantages. This study in-depth interviewed four kinship careers and social workers, as a total of 8 persons. The results indicated that four children placed for kinship care were lived with maternal side of grandmothers or grandfathers relatives due to their mothers’ out-of-wedlock. The decision-making for kinship care was a complicated negotiating process among social workers, mothers, and kinship relatives. Successfully placing children into kinship care faced two main challenges. One involved in the issue of vague boundary between mothers and kinship relatives, which put children in danger in terms of unstable placement and reoccurrence of abuse and neglect. The other involved in the issue of economic shortage. Not like foster families paid by a substantial fee, relatives providing kinship care could not receive any fee due to the myth of relative responsibility in the society. However, kinship care could do good to children and youth. For instance, children had better outcome in social adjustment, and children would grow a sense of belongingness when living with kinship family. Policy and practice implications are included.