Study Of The Dilemma And Coping Strategies Of The Kinship Care Of De Facto Orphans

The family is the most suitable environment for children to grow up,but for the de facto orphans,after the lack of original family guardianship,kinship care has become the choice of most children.However,due to various reasons,the quality of kinship care is often poor,causing secondary harm to de facto orphans.Based on this background,this study takes the caregivers as the research object.The following research issues are proposed:(1)What dilemmas do the kinship caregivers encounter in the care process?(2)What are the causes of the dilemma?(3)What are the coping strategies to solve the dilemma of the kinship care? This study aims to improve the quality of kinship care and promote the healthy growth of de facto orphans by answering these questions.In this study,the qualitative research method was used to conduct semi-structured interviews with 29 caregivers of de facto orphans in the M of Yangquan City,Shanxi Province.And the interview data were analyzed with the help of the ecosystem theory.The study found that caregivers usually encounter the following three dilemmas:(1)Caregivers are more worried about the future development of children due to various reasons,such as poor personal conditions,weak family’s economic foundation and insufficient social support.(2)The digital divide has widened the communication barriers between grandparents and teachers,and the incomplete implementation of the “double reduction” policy has extended the tutoring time for children and increased the burden of education.(3)The arrival of children disrupts the original rhythm of life of caregivers,and some children are not good at expressing themselves,reducing their willingness to care and increasing the incidence of family conflicts.In response to the above dilemmas,this study proposes three aspects of coping strategies:(1)Rescue strategies.Strengthen policy implementation,implement the service responsibilities of children directors to reduce caregivers’ concerns about children’s future development;provide volunteer services for tutoring and strengthen home-school cooperation,narrow the digital divide,carry out smart-phone learning groups for the elderly to reduce educational pressure;provide "family-like accompaniment" services.(2)Development strategies.Fill in existing policy vulnerabilities,improve the “double-reduction policy”;play to the linkage effect of "the five social cooperation",and weave a network of grass-roots children’s protection service.(3)Preventive strategies.Strengthen the education of the original family,strengthen the responsibility of family guardianship;accurate assessment of kinship care,and improve the care skills effectively.This study has contributed to both policy improvement and practical guidance on social work.Firstly,it can provide reference significance for the improvement of relevant policies,including suggesting that the living allowance standards for de facto orphans be set in a hierarchical classification and reduce the cost of after-school services for children in distress.Secondly,it can enrich social work in the field of children,and promote the practical development of social work in the field of children in distress through "family-like accompaniment" services.