Expanding Care for "Blind Spot Families" Including Single-Person Households and Families Supporting Elderly Parents

Expansion of 'Emergency Care' Including Hospital Accompaniment for Single-Person Households
Education and Counseling for Families Supporting Elderly Parents
120 More Hours of Childcare for Dual-Income Families

Care policies for isolated single-person households and families in welfare blind spots will be strengthened. Services such as hospital accompaniment, housekeeping and caregiving support, and elderly parent care will be introduced for single-person households who have family members to support but cannot receive care from their families.

On the 8th, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MOGEF) reported the "Plan to Activate Family Center Functions for Various Families Including Single-Person Households" at the State Affairs Ministers' Meeting chaired by the Prime Minister, in cooperation with related ministries.

MOGEF has been providing services such as family counseling and education, childcare, and multicultural family support through 244 family centers nationwide. While policies have focused on universal family support services, there have been calls for services targeting families in welfare blind spots such as single-person households, families supporting elderly parents, and school-age children from multicultural families. The Yoon Suk-yeol administration has specified support for family services for various families including single-person households as one of its national agenda tasks.

Minister Kim Hyun-sook of MOGEF explained, "As family types such as single-person households rapidly change, we have prepared this plan to proactively identify families in need of support and provide prompt assistance, as well as to offer tailored family services closely suited to diverse families."

Accordingly, MOGEF will promote ▲expansion of tailored support by family type at family centers ▲strengthening connections between family centers and administrative welfare centers ▲improving accessibility and awareness of family centers.

When single-person households face crises such as illness, hospital accompaniment and short-term housekeeping and caregiving support services will be introduced. Emergency care will be provided to relieve the burden on caregiving family members who care for elderly parents with illnesses or disabilities and suffer from depression or social relationship difficulties. Community meetings among families supporting elderly parents, elderly parent care education, and psychological and emotional counseling and education programs for grandparents caring for grandchildren will also be supported for the first time.

The functions of family centers for single-parent families will also be strengthened. Family centers will provide child support enforcement services to secure child support payments for minor children and expand centers offering visitation services between non-custodial parents and minor children to 18 locations this year. This is because single parents often bear sole responsibility for child-rearing and livelihood and face many cases of non-payment of child support.

The number of households supported by childcare services for dual-income families will be expanded from 75,000 to 85,000 this year. Support hours will also increase from 840 to 960 hours. MOGEF will expand the pilot project for care communities from 9 cities and provinces and 55 communities this year to 13 cities and provinces and 82 communities next year.

Tailored support will also be strengthened so that children from multicultural families can grow into talented individuals. Before school age, the "Bilingual Family Environment Creation Project" target will be expanded from infants and toddlers to children under 12 years old, and the number of basic learning support institutions will increase to 138.

Furthermore, to identify vulnerable and crisis families as well as children and youth at risk who are eligible for family center support, cooperation and linkage with related organizations such as welfare centers and local children's centers will be promoted.