Problems in Visiting Child Life Services for Multicultural Families and Alternatives Research: Centering on Expert Focus Group Interview

Abstract

Background/Objectives: By means of Focus Group Interview (FGI) the study aims to deduce the practical problems and measures for child life service and to analyze expert content on chapter service effects, problems in current operation methods, and future improvement plans, and make policy suggestions. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The study conducted a Focus Group Interview (FGI) on 4 directors of multicultural family support centers and 3 visiting education supervisors the practice child life service for multicultural families to deduce the practical problems and measures for child life services and create practical measures. For the directors of multicultural family support centers, they were directors with more than one and a half years of experience or had long fueled supervisor experience, and visiting supervisors were supervisors with over four years of experience at A city Gyeonggi center where child life service has been in operation for the longest time. The interview was conducted in two groups on September 18, 2015 and one and a half hours to two hours was required for each of the groups. Findings: The study analyzed child life service effects, operation method problems, and future improvement plan areas through focus group interview comprising of 10 subcategories under 6 categories. First area is ‘Effects of child life service’ and the Category is ‘Encounter’, and subcategories are ‘Opportunity for emotional exchanges and consultation’ and ‘Customized lessons through blind spot visits’. Second area is ‘Operation problems’ and Categories are ‘Service’, ‘Personal perspective’, and ‘Regional association’, and the subcategories are ‘Subject anxiety due to the lack of supply opportunities’, ‘Education supervision centering on desire of mothers’, ‘Low status and improper service request of visiting supervisors’ and ‘Difficulties in association with multicultural family disabled children institutions’. Last area is ‘Future improvement plans’ and the Categories are ‘Service Improvements’, and ‘Increase of efficacy’, and the subcategories are ‘Detailed service broken down by child development status’, ‘Necessary services for various family types’, ‘Family focused service including fathers’ and ‘Service evaluation based on child needs’. Improvements/Applications: As a future improvement plan for child life service considering child development periods, and family characteristics, there needs to be systematic changes in the direction of emotional stability promotion, and there needs to be policy approaches considering the entire members of the family of multicultural families.