| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 社會工作研究所 === 100 === Out-of-home caring is crucial in one of the child protection services, however previous studies have shown that the number of drifting youngsters is increasing. Most of them drift between foster families and residential care facilities. As results, we focused on the drifting experiences of teenagers by using qualitative analysis. The experiences include the differences between two environments and their own moving experiences, difficulties, and solutions.
This study is trying to understand several facts in child drifting. First, in the teenagers’ point of view what are the differences between two environments, foster families and residential care facilities? Second, we tried to understand their feelings and experiences in transition. In addition, we analyzed the reasons, difficulties and solutions of placement movement via ecological and coping theories. Moreover, by increasing the variability in this study, we also interviewed the drifted teenagers and social workers who worked with this particular field.
For our research purpose, we purposely sampled 14 teenagers and social workers in the foster families and residential care facilities in Taipei, Hsinchu city, and Hsinchu County. After one-on-one interview, we found sex results, which include:
First, the replaced teenagers noted that there are three differences between foster families and residential care facilities, material provided, morals and rules, and their relationships (both the person took care of them and roommates).
Second, the replacement experiences provided both positive and negative influences. The negative influences are self-fulfilling prophecy, low self-esteem and self-blame, loss of sense of security, emotional alienation, difficulties in stable intimate relationships, polarized patterns of human interactions, changing relationships, affected school works, low social and economic status in the future, interpersonal alienation, and weak social supporting systems. On the other hand, the positive affections include faded unfortunate feelings, reduced deviant behavior, personal strengths developed, and optimism cultivation.
Third, we investigated the reasons of teenagers’ replacement via ecosystems perspective through micro system, external systems, and macro system. In the reasons of micro system, we have shown serious deviant behavior teenagers, heavy loaded foster parents, stereotyped foster parents, and foster families mistreatment; in external systems, family with failed reorganized by Social Bureau, placement decision made by the court, inadequate beds in foster care, time limitation in foster family; in macroscopic system, the foster home is more suitable for the social values of younger children, and the preparation of living independently.
In addition, we found three main difficulties in replaced teenager: In the aspect of organization, they have problems in getting used to the lives and norms in the facility, group life, and the gap between the expectations for the organization versus the reality. In school, they face with poor social relationships and heavy loading in school works. In emotional aspects, they have low self-esteem due to social stigma, separation anxiety when leaving the foster families, and poor interpersonal relationships which cause emotional distress.
Furthermore, the solutions for replacement problems can be divided into two aspects, "problem" and "emotional." In problem aspect, they tend to show a direct attraction or deviant behavior, they used problem-solving skills, seeking for helps from others, evading the issue, ignoring the problem, having optimistic thoughts, and the patience of not taking any action. As for emotional aspect, they talked out the pressure by directly expressing the emotion, diverted attention by doing hobbits, cried, expressed emotions by self-hurting, and not to take any action.
In conclusion, this study focused on and provided suggestions in the system of out-of-home replacement services, the practical direction of services, and future government policies and researches. Our researches can serve as a reference for the policies of related facilities and future social workers.
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