Welfare Provision For Urban Vulnerable Children From The Welfare Governance Perspective

In recent years,with the transition of China's economic and social system,child welfare system's transition from residual to institutional,the number of vulnerable children surges to the millions and the problems of vulnerable children welfare have been increasingly emerging.Meanwhile,the study of welfare provision for vulnerable children and meeting their needs is especially important under the new background of social governance.With welfare governance perspective,this research focuses on urban vulnerable children,analyzes needs of vulnerable children,pluralist welfare provision for vulnerable children and finds the gap between welfare provision and needs meeting.Then on this basis,this study discusses the reasons that pluralist welfare provision could not meet needs of vulnerable children.The theoretical and practical implications for this study are as follows:on one hand,it could enrich and deepen the application of welfare governance theory,need theory and welfare pluralism theory by discussing the reasons of welfare provision dilemma,welfare needs for urban vulnerable children and different welfare sectors'relationship in taking welfare provision responsibility;on the other hand,it could also be beneficial to promote the construction of appropriate universal-type child welfare system in China.With welfare governance perspective,this research analyzes welfare needs of vulnerable children and the condition of welfare provision from family,community,social organization and government.Thus the gap between welfare provision and needs meeting could be found which means the dilemma of welfare provision for vulnerable children.According to the interrelated issues of welfare governance,the reasons of welfare provision dilemma could be discussed in the three aspects:making welfare policies and programs,welfare provision system for vulnerable children and the core forms and contents of vulnerable children welfare.This study takes qualitative research methods and conducts investigation in three low-and middle-income communities of FH Subdistrict in Nanjing.It uses observation,deep interview and documentary method to collect data and takes content analysis to analyze data.Based on that,the main findings are shown below.Firstly,welfare needs of urban vulnerable children mainly include four parts below.Vulnerable children need basic care which involves providing appropriate diet,teaching common sense of life and providing stable shelter and so on.Health needs mainly include disease prevention,medical treatment and professional rehabilitation services,etc.Education needs are composed of family and school education.Safety needs mean protecting vulnerable children from neglect,discrimination,abuse,violence and so on in home and school.Secondly,by contrasting welfare needs of vulnerable children and the present condition of welfare provision,it finds the gap between welfare provision from family,community,social organization and government and needs meeting.In other words,welfare provision for vulnerable children faces imbalance dilemma.More specifically,it is shown as three aspects listed below.As welfare coverage is limited,the basic welfare needs of a large number of vulnerable children could not be secured.Meanwhile,as the existing welfare programs are unbalanced,such as more benefit and fewer services,vulnerable children could not get the welfare program they really need.Moreover,low level welfare provision could not sufficiently meet needs of vulnerable children.In addition,there are there reasons that welfare provision dilemma is produced.Firstly,by analyzing making the welfare policies and programs for vulnerable children,we find the present welfare for vulnerable children is more based on charity and humanitarianism concern instead of social welfare rights.Therefore,the current welfare system for vulnerable children is based on the state and its resources instead of vulnerable children and their need,which is mainly selective and residual.Secondly,due to low efficient delivery and effective regulation,welfare provided by the present vulnerable children welfare system is insufficient as a whole.Not only each of welfare provision sectors has its own limitations or faces challenges in welfare delivery,but also pluralist welfare provision sectors do not form an integrated delivery network with high efficiency.So it reduces welfare delivery efficiency and decrease access to welfare services.Furthermore,due to insufficient regulation ability,government as the main regulator does not do very well in actual regulation.Meanwhile,professional self-regulation lacks.Both of them hinder the performance of regulation.Thirdly,though it has the pluralistic fund raising channels,the government does not fulfill its dominant financial responsibility which greatly limits the total sum of welfare fund.Thus the benefit in cash and welfare services are with limited welfare coverage and low level.Moreover,underdeveloped welfare services are more residual and with low level in specialization,in which supporting family services lack.All above impede meeting the needs of vulnerable children.Therefore,to solve such dilemma,this research suggests that pluralist welfare provision system for vulnerable children should be improved and construction of mix of universal welfare institution driven by vulnerable children needs should be accelerated.