2019-12-11
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According to the Social Affairs Bureau (SAB), Mayor Lu Shiow-Yen has dedicated herself to promoting important social welfare policies and increasing revenue for the city government. On 6/24 this year, the City Council passed the 3rd reading of the NT$8-plus billion supplementary budget proposal, of which NT$728 million are allocated to NHI subsidies for senior citizens – a policy that was reinstated on 7/1 this year - benefiting roughly 260,000 senior citizens in the city. The policy not only guarantees the senior citizens' right to medical care but also alleviates the burden of the younger generation.
SAB pointed out that Taichung City obtained multiple outstanding grades in the appraisal; for instance, within the social assistance item, diverse measures have been implemented to accumulate asset-related know-how, while the cultivation of debt settlement, management, as well as financial literacy abilities help citizens to get out of poverty via holistic approaches, thereby providing impoverished families with an opportunity to become self-sufficient and independent.
In regards to social worker professionalism, the SAB has formulated the Taichung City Family Welfare Service Center Service Quality Improvement 2.0 Program, where the itinerant consulting team mechanism is established to reinforce the overall service quality. At the same time, in protecting the social workers' rights, their remuneration will be adjusted, providing them with the necessary social worker benefits and personal safety measures. Besides showing respect for the social workers' professionalism, the policy also makes the work conditions of the social worker colleagues safer and more reasonable.
SAB Director-General Peng Huai-Chen commented that the outstanding result of the social welfare appraisal is attributed to the concerted efforts of all SAB colleagues and private organizations. In the future, SAB will strive to develop more diversified and localized social welfare policies, and the public-private partnership (PPP) will be applied in conjunction with information and communications technology (ICT) to expand the scope of and popularize social welfare services.
unit:綜合企劃科
