서울시 모자보호시설의 개선방안에 관한 연구

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to review how much the maternal and child welfare facilities help widow mothers live a stable and independent life and address the problems of the facilities and thereby, suggest some reform measures for them. For this purpose, those mothers who are waiting to be accommodated into the facilities or accommodated already or who left them were surveyed through a questionnaire and phone interview. Although this study is limited in that only several facilities were sampled and that the response ratio was too low (around 70%) to be generalized, it may be significant in comparison with preceding studies. As a result of this study, it was found that the most serious problems of mother-child home were financial difficulty, poor living environment, child-rearing or education problem. Fortunately, those mothers accommodated into the facilities seemed to be more or less satisfied with them, because many of their problems could be solved. However, it was deemed necessary to improve the professional services in the areas of health, medical service, psychological or emotional problems, while operating more positive and diverse programs for the mothers leaving the facilities. On the other hand, the problems involving the operation of maternal and child welfare facilities were identified as seven-fold: small subsidies for living activities, shortage of facilities and shelter, poor child rearing or education services, poor healthcare and medical services, shortage of professional manpower, less diverse facility programs and insufficient mother-child welfare programs. In order to solve these problems, seven-fold reform measures are suggested as follows: increase of the subsidies for living activities, expansion of maternal and child welfare facilities and shelters, reinstatement of educational programs at night, reinforcement of healthcare and medical services, recruitment of the professional manpower for counselling services, diversification and efficient operation of the facility programs and implementation of a comprehensive mother-child welfare programs. In consideration of the fact that many widow mothers and their children are waiting long to be accommodated into the facilities due to shortage of facilities, they are very vulnerable to poverty and disintegration of family. So, it is essential to expand the facilities, while recruiting and reeducating the professionals, expanding the nursing and educational supports, reinforcing the healthcare and medical services, diversifying the facility programs in a more professional way, and financing the facility programs. In addition, the mother-child families need to be managed more thoroughly and thereby, individualized but comprehensive rehabilitation programs should be extended to them so that they can stand alone in the society, being free from poverty-stricken life.