ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

This study examined the current situations of out-of-home care (OOHC), its limitations and ways to improve the system. For the purpose, the governmental statistics and previous research findings were utilized. There were 4,179 out-of-home care placement cases of child abuse and 590 out-of-home care placement cases of recurring child abuse. Since child abuse as well as recurring child abuse are happening at home by parents, it is inevitable to place abused children out of their homes. There are, however, several limitations in OOHC: a short supply of institutions to host children and lacking reasonable and valid decision-making tools for the child placement. In addition, there are lack of shelters, poor services provided in child welfare facilities for the abused children, poor group-home services, lack of foster care as well as temporary shelters and treatment institutions, and poor support for the family-of-origin. In order to improve OOHC, this study suggested several policies including refined decision-making process for placement, expanding shelters, professional foster care, and temporary shelters and professional child abuse treatment centers, financially supporting group-homes, and hiring more professionals at child welfare facilities.

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