Intervention Program on the Child Neglect of Low-income Female-headed Families

저소득 모자가족 아동방임 개입 프로그램 개발 및 효과성 연구

One of the difficulties of female-headed families face is economic hardship. Low-income single mothers work long hours, become isolated and feel burdened for dual roles. And many of them don't have relatives to share parenting roles. As a result, children of low-income female-headed families are easy to be neglected and left to form a delinquency-prone group in neighborhood. Traditionally, it has been viewed that children in female-headed families have problems due to the loss of father role. However, study indicates that these children can adjust well if the relationship between mothers and children is consistent and adequate. An Intervention program for low-income female-headed elementary children was developed and delivered in two community social welfare centers. The purpose of the program is to raise self-esteem. Two goals were 1) management of daily living habits and 2) improvement of family relations. Social workers maintained contact with mothers to talk about children's behaviors and to prompt hugging and touching. In addition, workers helped children to form good relationships with peers and school teachers. Children were satisfied with the program. Their family relations were improved statistically significantly after the program(wilcoxon signed rant test z=-2.934 p<.05). However, their self esteem were not improved significantly (wilcoxon signed test z=-1.173 p>.05). Qualitative analysis of each children were also discussed. The implications of the study are the followings: Intervention programs need to be delivered separately for low-grade and high grade elementary children because they have different developmental needs. The program also need to include education on sex and marriage as well as aggression reduction. Society needs to provide more support to single mothers for their personal and parenting needs.