Chongqing’s foster parents give children a family
Print Edition
RECRUITED by a children’s home in Chongqing, Li Chenghong, 52, is raising four children, aged between 3 and 14 years old. All have some disability and, before being put in the care of Li and her husband, 53-year-old Zhou Huagang, all lived in the orphanage.
Li applied to be a foster parent six years ago after seeing an advert on TV. Now she and her husband live in a four-bedroom apartment at the home and are paid 2,000 yuan a month to care for the children.
“When I first came here, I had so many difficulties. I lost 10 kilograms of weight in the first month,” Li said. Her daughter is a nurse, but Li had no experience of looking after disabled children.
Yesterday was China’s national day for disabled people on May 15, an opportunity for child-care institutions to show how such arrangements have succeeded where conventional care often fails.
Chongqing was among the first to make use of foster parents and over the past nine years, more than 20 couples have worked with about 100 children.
Foster parents have to be at least 35 years old, with grown-up children who no longer need support. The mother must be a full-time housewife and if the father has a job, he must return home every day.
“We want the children to feel closeness, continual care and the integrity of a family,” said Li Pengmei, director of the children’s home.
Luo Jiaojiang, director of the social development institute at Wuhan University, said that finding full time parents can create a loving and stable family unit for the children. “Surrounded by caring adults, children have a better chance of emotionally healthy lives,” she said.
China has more than half a million orphans and disabled children institutionalized for one reason or another in the care of almost 900 approved organizations.
Of the 500 children living at the Chongqing home where Li Chenghong works, around 90 percent have severe disabilities. Those who live with foster parents are generally the least severe cases.
“We are always looking for more couples willing to help us,” said Li Pengmei.“These foster parents really deserve so much credit.”
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