| Summary: | 碩士 === 靜宜大學 === 社會工作與兒童少年福利學系 === 105 === Adolescents leave residential care when they reach the age or time limit for care. If their birth families are unable support them, they will most likely be forced to face the challenges of independent living. The realities and expectations young care leavers face and experienced are really worth studying and exploring.
This study investigates the differences between services offered by an independent living program which the young care leavers received and their expectations.The data were from in-depth interviews with the young care leavers, responsible social workers and the internet information in one of the cities in central Taiwan. This study was interviewed with six young care leavers living independently and five social workers. The main results are as follows:
(1)Services from independent living programs differ depending on the organization offering them. Contractors for independent living programs offer services such as transitional independent living dormitories, training in daily life arrangement, outdoor experience activities, work practice and internships. The services from independent living programs offered by independent organizations include: inter-organizational collaboration to help with the preparation of independent living, bonus systems to encourage independent living, training for financial management and independent living skills and events that lets people share their independent living experiences. The services offered by both kinds of organizations include: financial aid, rental assistance, regular follow-up on independent living status and the connection of community resources.
(2)The independent living assistance services expected by young care leavers are to build independent living concepts and skills beforehand, necessary financial aid, assistance in continued education, to be free of restrictions in transitional dormitories, outdoor experience trainings to expand horizons, job matching services to make job hunting easier, stable emotional support and company, life and career planning and discussions to help them find their way and individualized services that listens to and understands them.
(3)The differences between what adolescents expected and the reality of independent living assistance were: financial aid were not properly given, the many rules and restrictions for the independent living dormitories, the lack of career exploring and job matching, turnovers of the responsible social workers affected the building of trust in relationships and the adolescents are not truly understood, making it hard to provide individualized services.
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