Extended Readings: Duty and Right of the Foster Family
The Foster Service Institution shall clearly keep the foster parent informed of the foster children’s duty and right.
I. Duties of the foster parent are specified as follows:
1. Duties to the foster children:
A. Keep the privacy and confidentiality for the foster children, juveniles, and the families thereof.
B. Provide a stable and warm family environment to treat the child or juvenile as one of the family members and to share his/her delight, anger, sorrow, and happiness.
C. Take good care of the foster child or juvenile in daily living, help them to keep same path with a normal family, and provide three meals a day with balanced nutrition.
D. Notice the foster children and juveniles’ physical and psychological development; in addition to watching their physical conditions and mental behaviors, give them the necessary assistance or guidance.
E. Cultivate juveniles’ good living habit.
F. Pay close attention to the medical care service which is deserved to the foster children or juveniles, such as inoculation or diseased treatment.
G. Give emotional support and satisfaction to the children or juveniles; listen to their languages and extend our concern and encouragement by means of language or non-language to let them perceive the love and tolerance from his/her foster parent.
H. In the non-mandatory foster care or specific case, we shall encourage the foster children or juveniles to keep connections with their biological families and promote the emotional conjunction of children and natural families, so as to return their families sooner or later.
I. Avoid criticizing children’s biological family in front of the foster children or juveniles.
J. Treatment of Important Events
(A) Advise the social worker when children or juveniles are suffering from serious disease or a chronical sickness unable to get improvement for a long-term period,
(B) As any accident occurs onto the children or juveniles, we shall conduct an emergency treatment and notify the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF)
(C) As the children or juveniles run away from home (or discover them not returning home at the routine time they should), we shall immediately notify the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF).
(D) The miscellaneously important events as the foster family assumed that TFCF has to cope with.
K. As the placement or re-placement is settled within the first month, the foster child or juvenile has to write a sheet of daily record (journal), and three months later, a journal per week, till the end of the placement.
L. When the child or juvenile has been in placement for one month, the foster family and the social worker shall jointly fill in a Mental Health Checking List.
2.Duties to the Institution:
A. Sign a Foster Family Contract with the Institution.
B. Accept irregular interview held by social workers, provide current information in regard to the foster child or juvenile, and coordinate with social workers’ counselling project gladly.
C. Participate in the studying, training, or other activities held by the Institution
D. Any assistance or guidance onto the foster child or juvenile can be discussed with or proposed to social workers, but respects to the institution and the social worker’s assessment or policy have to be maintained.
E. As to the matching placement for the foster child or juvenile, social workers often have their professional consideration, such as the factors of children’s age, question, or personality, etc.; the foster family shall respect their arrangement.
F. The foster family shall esteem provisions of the Institution in respect of the foster fee to be effectively used in children’s meals, stationaries, clothing, or petty cash.
G. Respect social workers and the Institution’s policy to terminate the foster placement and transfer the foster children or juveniles back to their biological families or other places.
H. The Institution is entitled to terminate qualifications of the foster family and file the case by law if the foster family infringes the right of the child, or commits an offence such as violation of the “Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act”, or failure to coordinate with the Institution’s counselling plan.
I. If the foster family has an unusual variation such as marital status, removal, or immigration etc., they shall immediately keep social workers informed.
J. The foster family unable to continuously serve his/her duties, with or without a cause, may send a one-month notice to the Institution in favor of the re-arrangement of the foster children.
3. Duties to the child or juvenile’s natural family:
A. Despite background of the natural family, we shall treat them with a sense of balance.
B. Respect relatives of the foster child; under a particle circumstance, accept the Institution’s propose, and encourage the child to contact with his/her natural family.
C. The solicitude of the foster family to the foster child is worthy to be affirmative, but you have to remind yourself from time to time of serving as the temporary parent.
D. To help children to return to their natural families, we shall help them to adapt to their natural family life, and stop acting the role of foster parent after they left their foster families.
E. The foster family shall discuss with social workers, in respect of the observation on the interview between the child and the natural family, so as to serve as a reference to assess the case.
II. Rights of the foster parent:
1. The certificate of foster honor issued by the Administration and the subsidy of foster fee.
2. The Institution shall provide the foster parent with the information which may facilitate the foster child to adapt to the foster family.
3. The foster parent shall be advised of the placement project of the foster child.
4. The foster parent shall be advised of the application channel and process of the Institution.
5. The foster parent shall be clearly advised of the role to act as a foster parent and the function of the Institution.
6. The foster parent shall be respected and supported by the Institution.
7. The meritorious foster parent may be recommended to accept the government or association’s recognition.