The Institutional Care for Older Persons and the Related Social Services in Taiwan

This article reviews the current status and future prospect of social work practice in long term care institutions. Even though the current occupancy rate is only 71.7% in the long term care market, more and more new institutions continue to be established. Two major factors affecting the imbalance in long term care market are: government policies regarding the subsidies to the establishment of foundation-owned institutions and to individual institution placements and the departmentalization of elderly care homes and homes for the disabled. There are very few social workers working at long term care institutions, the majority of which in public or larger private ones. The rights of residents in small institutions are often insufficiently protected due to the missing of social workers. This article presented that social workers could help to promote the quality of life of elderly residents by empowering individual residents to express themselves, designing individualized care plans and making connections with nearby community resources. Recommendations were made to modify government policies regarding institution subsidies and to create an integrated plan for social worker manpower development.