2015-12-18
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The annual "Social Welfare Performance Evaluation of Direct-controlled Municipalities, City and County Governments by the Central Administration" of the Ministry of Health and Welfare is conducted by an evaluation committee comprised of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan, the Ministry of Finance, professionals and civic groups. The 10 evaluated categories are the management and operation of the Public Welfare Lottery, social assistance, child and teenage welfare, women's welfare, elderly welfare, welfare for the physically and mentally disabled, community development, social work, volunteer service, domestic violence and sexual abuse prevention .
The evaluation results were release recently and Taichung City received the "especially excellent" grade in all ten categories, with full marks of 100 in the elderly welfare category. It improved upon the 8 "especially excellent" and 2 "excellent" results from last year to become the only county/city to receive "especially excellent" in all 10 categories. It was also the first time that Taichung knocked off Taipei City, the city with the most resources and most number one finishes, for number one. Before this evaluation, Taichung City also ranked first in the "social welfare strength" category in the "Happy Cities" survey conducted by the CommonWealth Magazine.
Social Affairs Bureau director Lu Jiande pointed out that Taichung City improved from "excellent" to "especially excellent" in child and teen welfare, domestic violence and sexual abuse prevention categories. This year's integrated daycare and TDM (Team Decision Meeting) policies being approved by the central government is a key reason.
Director Lu said that the integrated daycare policy changes from simple subsidies to more of a social investment concept. This lightens the burden of parents while creating work opportunities at the same time. The Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse Prevention Center pushed the TDM (Team Decision Meeting) policy this year targeting victim cases of child domestic violence and abandonment. Social workers no longer need to work without assistance. Now the Prevention Center invites lawyers, experts, guardians, village chiefs and social workers to make team decisions, figure out the best way to assist the child and take steps to achieve the goal.
Even though they already won first place, Director Lu said that the footsteps of improvement would not stop here. In the future, the government will learn from the childcare and elderly care strengths of Japan and Korea while importing the experience of northern European nations. The integrated daycare 721 policy will also care for 10% of the disabled elderly.
Director Lu also said that Taichung is actually an elderly-friendly that is becoming more and more complete in child welfare and domestic violence prevention. Through the interdisciplinary cooperation and resource integration between the fields of social policies, medical and health, police, labor, education and justice, services such as childcare, elderly daycare, subsidies for women and the physically disabled will all improve. Taichung will be built into a happy city on the basis of social investment concerning the needs of the people.
unit:綜合企劃科
