The International Children's Conference, organized by the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF) and sponsored by the Chinatrust Charity Foundation, aims at promoting and advocating the wellbeing of children and families. We also explore opportunities in reformulating our child welfare policy based on the experiences of researchers and educators from the USA, UK, Australia, and Taiwan, in order to address emerging research and development into our program for young children.
Thanking our numerous donors, the TFCF has been able to help financially deprived children and families in need for the past 58 years in Taiwan. In recent years, TFCF has been paying an ever increasing attention to early childhood education. If you note the financial difficulties disadvantaged families face, children born into poverty are almost always deprived of pre-primary education. This is why TFCF believes it is of vital importance that they develop programs to aid children during these formative years and break the cycle of poverty so many families have fallen into.
Early childhood is a critical period marked by rapid transformations in physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. It is at during this period that brain development lays the foundation for later learning, yet the disadvantaged children experience the least gains because of the financial difficulties. Special emphases should be placed on developing disadvantaged children's basic skills, building up basic concepts and helping the development of positive values and attitudes. (Meng-Hsiang Chou, 1988; Li-Feng Hong, 1992; Chi-Ming Yu, 1993; Yu-Feng Huang, 1998; Du-Chiang Wang, 2006; Li-Chen Cheng, 2006)
TFCF has collaborated with the Chinatrust Charity Foundation for the "Light up the Life" program since 2005. This program has helped disadvantaged families to shake off poverty through a variety of ways. Through pursuing the basic educational resources and equal opportunities to enrich and nurture underprivileged children, the TFCF aims to overcome the inter-generation poverty problem.
Mr. Chen, Kuo-Shi, Chairman of the Board of the Chinatrust Charity Foundation
There are many donations given to charitable causes in our community, but most of them are granted to an individual case. It has long been the unsolved problem that the economic backwardness of a national region influences the success of the overall society. Since the Chinatrust Charity Foundation has assisted the TFCF in an anti-poverty program, we have seen many successful cases in the "Head Start Program". It is our goal to provide help to needy people.
Mr. Ming-Jen Wang, Executive Director of the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF)
The Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF) promotes the "Head Start Program", which is a project aimed at providing the equal opportunity development of children living in poverty. This has long been the target of our foundation. We offer a subsidy to children from unemployed or low-income families, in order that they can access skills, training and registration that they would have not otherwise been able to access. Since 2005, TFCF has focused on the task of improving life for children through the formulation of policies for children's affairs. These support the growth and development of disadvantaged children in terms of education, housing, social welfare and health care from 24 counties and cities throughout Taiwan. The Program started as a small pilot project three years ago and has since grown to involve 542 children and families living in poverty. Among these, 77.6% of the children have enrolled in the Children's Day Care program, and 22.4% of the children attended schools.Through its social network for Mentor Disadvantaged Children, the TFCF provides disadvantaged students the opportunity to participate in activities that introduce them to community resources, raise their learning and problem-solving skills, boost their self-confidence and broaden their horizons in a social context.
Ms. Chien, Hui-jiuan, Director General, Children's Bureau Ministry of the Interior R.O.C (CBI)
Immigration and child welfare issues are slowly gaining national attention. The CBI maintains a support group for families, promote the mentoring scheme for disadvantaged families in caring for their children, provide services to assist new immigrants, support low-income working families through child care financial assistance, assist children's learning by improving the quality of early care and education programs, provide support programs for residents and workers from overseas by establishing networks and the infrastructure for multicultural communities, and enhance the population issues on promoting gender equality.
Sustained technical assistance and training, as well as the education efforts of projects such as Families and Children's Services, all are being built upon by non-profit and charitable organizations such as the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF). Their commitment is in improving child welfare systems and outcomes for children. The TFCF's practiced wisdom from 58 years of child welfare experience has developed through many phases of family and children services. The organization represents an initial effort and looks forward to sharing their fieldwork in order to formulate a child welfare policy and program.
Piling up Their Future with Love － International Conference on Capacity Building to Empower Children
May 19-20, 2008
National Taichung Institute of Technology, the Business Building (International Conference Room)
Conference Organization
Organizer: Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF)
In Cooperation with Children Bureau Ministry of Interior R.O.C (CBI)
Sponsored by Chinatrust Charity Foundation
Conference Program:
Topic |
Moderator |
Speaker |
I. Child Welfare Programs; Perspectives and Developments from Policy Analysis- Taiwan |
Ming-Jen Wang, Executive Director of the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF) |
Ms. Hui-jiuan Chien, Director General, Children Bureau Ministry of the Interior R.O.C (CBI) |
II. Child Welfare Programs Perspectives and Developments from Policy Analysis- United Kingdom |
Dr. Hou-Sheng Chan, National Policy Foundation |
Professor Teresa Smith University of Oxford, UK |
III. Child Welfare Programs Perspectives and Developments from Policy Analysis- United States of America |
Assistant Professor Shu-Yung Brenda Wang, Department of Social Welfare, National Chung Cheng University |
Dr. Mary A. Moran Consultant for CCF |
IV Child Welfare Programs Perspectives and Developments from Policy Analysis- Australia |
Assistant Professor Shu-Yung Brenda Wang, Department of Social Welfare, National Chung Cheng University |
Maree Walk
General Manager Operations of The Benevolent Society |
.
Formula Discussion |
Moderator |
Speaker |
I The Formula Discussion- Australia |
Professor Li-Chen Cheng, Department of Social Work, National Taiwan University |
Professor Margaret Sims
Edith Cowan University, Australia |
II The Formula Discussion- United States of America |
Assistant Professor Li-Hua Lillian Ren, Department of Special Education, Chung Yuan Christian University |
Dr. Mary A. Moran Consultant for CCF |
III The TFCF Formula on Child Mentorship Scheme |
Assistant Professor Ching-Fu Chen, Department of Cooperative Economics, Feng Chia University |
Ming-Jen Wang, Executive Director of the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF) |
IV The mentoring scheme for disadvantaged families in caring for their children and services to assist new immigrants- by Taipei Municipal WenChan Children's Day Care Center |
Professor Hsiu-Fen Hsieh, Department of Social Work, Soochow University |
Hsin-Ho Su, director of the Taipei Municipal WenChan Children¡¦s Day Care Center |
V The Formula Discussion- United Kingdom |
Professor Yu-Yuan Kuan, Department of Social Welfare, National Chung Cheng University |
Professor Ann Buchanan
University of Oxford, UK
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