Shelter from the Storm Halfway Houses for Taiwan's Troubled Youth

The real purpose of a home is to provide a safe haven for growing youngsters. However, more and more young people are either homeless or can't get home.

"The nation has its laws, the home has its rules." Ilan's Tsu Huai Yuan Halfway House is housed in one floor of an apartment building. It lets the youngsters set their own rules and regulations for the home, which nurtures their self-control and lets them understand what it means to take responsibility for their actions.

According to National Police Administration statistics, on average more than 3000 young people are placed in youth homes, juvenile detention centers or jails each year. Moreover, Taiwan has at least 5000 homeless youth on her streets.

I'll show them my best piece! I did all these in my spare time!

In recent years, another type of home has been provided for these youth, as an alternative to living on the street or in some form of detention, to allow them another choice besides continuing down the wrong path.

As the sun sets in Kaohsiung County's Yanchao Township, the Chinan Highway is bathed in the yellow twilight. Just out of school for the day, junior high school student A-Mo trudges along the straight line of the road, with an inexpressible desire in his heart: to return to a very special home-a freestanding red-brick building with a sloping roof, where the front yard is an expanse of green grass, and the back yard boasts a basketball court.

As usual, when he has scarcely reached the entrance, A-Mo spies his "uncle," "auntie," and four or five roommates his own age, who are all waiting for him at the gate.

"This is not my old home, but I like coming home better now," A-Mo says. He likes coming home and casting off the school uniform and changing into his Bulls T-shirt, which features Michael Jordan's number. He likes to play basketball with his roommates until "auntie" calls them in for supper. After eating, it's time to share the events at school with everyone. The atmosphere is warm and relaxed.

A-Mo's parents split up years ago, and they have both remarried since and have their own new families, neither of which wants A-Mo. From the time he was small, he was left with his grandma and grandpa, who were elderly and ill-tempered. They often scolded or struck the active youngster. As a result, from the time he went to elementary school, he embarked on a pattern of running away from home, skipping school, and stealing for a living.

In his final year of elementary school, he was caught on numerous occasions for stealing, and was eventually sent to juvenile court, where he was sentenced to three years in a juvenile reformatory and training school for corrective education. However, the judge took into account his home environment, and felt that he had the potential to go straight. The judge told A-Mo that there was a place that offered a good environment and a home-like atmosphere, where people would take care of him and where he could continue to attend school and not have to be locked up. For the judge to send him there, A-Mo had only to promise that he would not run away.

It was in this way that A-Mo entered the Youth Academy of the Kaohsiung branch of the Taiwan After-Care Association. Six months ago, he moved into a new building the Keng-sheng Protective Society had built for them, sporting the "Kaohsiung Youth Academy" sign on the gate, where his "auntie" and "uncle" work as counselor/social workers. His roommates, for the most part, are there for reasons similar to his own.

Presently the Academy has a dozen-odd students ranging in age from 12 to 18. All have different problems. Some have lighter sentences and are under "probation" or "weekend guidance," and they may live at home with periodic guidance and inspection by probation officers. If the authorities or the youngsters' parents consider their home discipline insufficient, however, the youngsters may be sent to the Academy for guidance education. Other young people have come here because they have nowhere to go after being released from juvenile detention and classification homes, juvenile reformatory and training schools and juvenile jails. Others are here because their parents don't want them at home. Because of the many reasons for their coming to the Academy, the youngsters stay for different periods of time.

A halfway house

A-Mo's new home, the Kaohsiung Youth Academy, is a halfway house which specializes in youth with behavioral problems. For the youngsters, the Academy provides a home, but not only in terms of physical safety. It also gives them the chance to establish a new life for themselves.

National Taiwan University Department of Sociology professor Annie Yu explains that the idea of the halfway house was originally used in providing services for mentally ill persons. Some such patients had disorders which were treatable, and had been cured, but when they returned to their homes or tried to start living in society again, they often encountered difficulties in adjusting, or found that they had insufficent skills. In response to this problem, social workers established a "stop" between the hospital and the home where the patients could gradually acclimate, as well as receiving guidance in life and career skills, allowing them to once again enter society.

"This method was later applied to convicts," says Yu. Prison is a very insulated environment, and this creates problems for ex-inmates when they are released. They need a buffer zone in both time and space. As the scope of social welfare gradually widened, halfway house services became available to recovering drug addicts, women, children, youth, and others.

Chou Li-hwa, director of the Youth Welfare Office of the Bureau of Social Affairs of Taipei City Government, points out that previously, most youth cases came about as a result of poverty or the separation or death of one or more parents. As a result, the majority of placements were made in orphanages, where the children could live for a long period of time. However, in recent years, the roots of youth problems have changed, and cases of physical or emotional abuse and behaviorial problems are increasing. Such cases require a halfway house environment which can provide protection, guidance and other special services.

Renewing "labels"

According to Ministry of Justice statistics, there were nearly 30,000 youthful offender cases last year in Taiwan, which translates to about twelve percent of Taiwanese youth between 12 and 18. To put it in other words, for every nine young people, one will get into trouble with the law.

Presently, Taiwan handles such youthful offenders using the Law for Handling Youth Crimes. The procedure begins with a police arrest of a young offender, who is then sent to a juvenile detention and classification home to await the indictment by the district attorney. If an indictment is handed down, the teen is sent to juvenile court for trial and sentencing, or release, if there is insufficient evidence.

Such legal judgments are made based on the nature of the case and the particular circumstances surrounding it. At its most severe, cases of serious crime or crimes causing major damage or injury usually find the perpetrators given a sentence in a juvenile detention center. Other offenders might be placed in a juvenile reformatory and training school as in cases of theft or robbery. Youths charged in connection with altercations or fights might be sentenced to probation or weekend guidance. Those whose offenses are judged to be the lightest, such as runaways, truants, or those picked up wandering the streets, are usually let off with a stern warning.

In recent years, an average of 3000 young people a year have been put into juvenile detention and classification homes, juvenile reformatory and training schools, juvenile jails or similar organizations for corrective education. However, research studies have shown that such institutions have not been as effective as was hoped in providing correction.

"Putting many young offenders together in one place like this can cause what could be termed a contagion of evil. They exchange ideas on criminal techniques and experiences, and as a result, many are unable to return to a normal life when they are released. They fall into more crime, and might even become tomorrow's adult criminals," says Chow Chen-ou, Chair of the Department of Social Work at Chinese Culture University.

"Moreover, these organizations which handle such large numbers of youthful offenders use collective management methods, and it would be hard for them not to have any dead ends or deviancies. The older ones pick on the younger ones, and there is group violence and the like. These are all situations that we see frequently," admits Chou, who also serves as president of the Chinese Association of Criminology, ROC. The young people are also entering the justice system at too young an age, and often acquire unfavorable labels. The long period of isolation from society also impedes the overall growth of these youngsters.

Searching for a home

Looking at the question from another perspective-the experience of other nations-the United States has moved from the 1960s-era closed-type juvenile detention facilities to places which are more like halfway houses, located in the community. Within these facilities, the trend is toward downsizing and specialization, to provide the home environment which youngsters need for normal growth.

Research has shown that criminal behaviors are more effectively eliminated using the kind of individualized treatment and guidance which these "homes" can provide. The youngsters involved also have a better opportunity to become accustomed to a normal lifestyle, and can attend local schools or work at jobs in the community. In this way, they are better able to smoothly re-integrate themselves into their families and into society when they leave the home.

As a result, Taiwan has begun to examine similar options of late. The Taiwan After-Care Association has already left its original home with the Ministry of Justice and struck out as a foundation, establishing the Youth Academy in Kaohsiung. Many public-spirited civil groups have also lent a hand to this work. For example, the Christian Born Anew Fellowship has the Peitou Youth Halfway House and the Hsin Wang Ai Halfway House, and the Mustard Seed Association also has a youth home in Hualien. The Taipei Song-te House is run by a Buddhist organization, and the Tsu Huai Yuan Halfway House in Ilan County was established by a civic organization there.

These facilites can be as small as a single home, like the Christian Born Anew Fellowship's Youth Halfway House in Peitou, taking on at most six to eight youngsters at a time. This home was opened six years ago when pastor David Huang and his wife found themselves with their children grown and an "empty nest." The larger homes take between 30 and 40 young people.

However, because these organizations are all run by private individuals or civic groups, and are constantly being changed in response to social problems, to date no complete statistical survey has been done which would accurately reflect the actual resources which can be provided by Taiwan's halfway houses.

To be loved and healed

The play therapy room in the Tsu Huai Yuan Halfway House in Ilan is carpeted, and there are pillows everywhere. Several children are drawing on white paper, heads bowed. On the paper are boxes and circles, along with some connecting lines.

Director Li Hou-chin is doing "home reconstruction" with the kids. He explains: "We draw the 'family circle,' and the boxes represent males, like the father and brothers. The circles represent females, like the mother and sisters. The straight lines are the relationships between the people."

Some children fill their papers with complicated and crowded circles and lines. Other papers are simpler, with only one or two circles to show their home background and relationships. The method not only uses drawing, which allows the children to clarify the relationships in their own homes, but also role-playing, which is used for children who show an emotional response. These "emotional dramas" are used to let the children release their feelings and have a chance for healing.

The White Paper on Youth released by the Executive Yuan's National Youth Commission two years ago gave the results of a survey, showing that of parental attitudes toward their children, exploitation or abuse, too-severe discipline, contradictory parent-ing, differences in opinion between the two parents, breakdown of the family unit, worsening of the atmosphere in the family, low social status of parents, and incorrect values and attitudes toward society were the major factors leading to juvenile crime.

"To live and be loved is the fundamental need of all people. When children get into trouble, the majority of them do it because they cannot satisfy these two desires." Li Hou-chin feels that these fundamental desires should be fulfilled in the home. When the family is dysfunctional, the children's needs cannot be met, and they can only look for ways to vent their emotions outside the family, by running away, playing hooky from school, stealing, and so on.

"When the attitudes of the father and mother are not consistent with each other, the children have nothing to hold on, and they can develop emotional conflicts. When parents discipline by yelling and striking the children, the children are injured physically and mentally. We have seen a lot of these situations lately," says Li.

"Auntie" Kao Chia-chen, who has worked at the Kaohsiung Youth Academy for nearly two years, says that during her tenure in the facility, most of the youth in the Academy were very intelligent and quite like any other young people in personality. Almost without exception, they come from low- or middle-income homes where the parents are unable to provide appropriate guidance for the child. Some are from single-parent households where the father or mother is so busy with work that he or she has no time for the child; others come to the Academy after the separation of their parents leaves them living with aging grandparents.

Kao says sadly that these children are "disadvantaged from the start." They have had almost no opportunity to receive a good education or to grow up well. If society cannot give these "fledglings" a chance, then perhaps society needs to pay the price for its indifference.

Taking over the family's role in satisfying the basic needs of these youngsters is the primary function of a halfway house. As such, this encompasses not only providing food, clothing and a roof over the children's heads-mere physical necessities-but also giving them parents, as in the case of the Tsu Huai Yuan Halfway House, which establishes groups of eight children and provides each group with two full-time counselors who live with the kids day and night. These counselors take care of the children, see them off to school and supervise them in cooking their meals, washing their clothes, and doing their schoolwork.

When children grow up in dysfunctional households, they are often injured physically or psychologically, and require treatment. In such cases, other social workers take over guidance and psychological counseling roles, and use home reconstruction, emotional management, sexual education and similar growth curricula to treat and correct the youngsters. Li Hou-chin, who worked for 12 years in Ilan County's Department of Social Services, went for training as a psychologist four years ago. Li's organization has also contracted with the doctors in the local hospital's mental health department to provide treatment for youngsters who show tendencies toward mental illnesses.

Kao Chia-chen's own principle is to enter the children's lives, concern yourself with their inner selves, and to have them recognize you and know that you truly care for them. You can't use "management"-it's really a question of struggling alongside them. She feels that the children are very malleable, and that they often give her enormous paybacks. For example, one weekend she took a group of children out on an excursion, and a borderline mentally retarded student, seeing that she had a headache, asked her if she had brought any medicine. This moved Kao very much.

The Kaohsiung Youth Academy puts great emphasis on "home restructuring". Apart from allowing the Academy's youth to rediscover the warmth of a home within the school's walls and sharing household duties, they also give the children special assistance in rebuilding their ties with their original families, and help the parents to learn how to communicate with their children. Judging from several very striking success stories the Academy has seen, when parents play an improved parental role, the children are often deeply influenced. What the youngsters truly wish for is to have a "real home."

A contract for love and self-control

Besides protection and treatment, halfway houses also need to provide authority. Tsu Huai Yuan Halfway House social worker Hu Pi-yun admits that there is a high rate of running away, stealing, arguing and fighting among the children after they enter the facility. Apart from a policy of depending on the constant attention of the workers, other means used to nurture greater self-control and self-accountability in the youngsters include training them to hold family meetings, and establishing the Tsu Huai Yuan Court. These methods make the children answerable to their own standards and hold them accountable to each other.

One recent judgement of the Tsu Huai Yuan Court went like this:

Complaint: A certain individual who was going to cram school left the grounds without permission and went cruising, smoking and driving a motorcycle without a license, causing a road accident. The teen was only sent back to Tsu Huai Yuan Halfway House after release by the police.

Judgement: The individual was to be responsible for the aftermath of the incident, and was grounded for one week. Three laps of the park and extra chores.

"Peer pressure is much more persuasive than all our lectures and punishments," says Hu. Although this doesn't guarantee that the children will not commit other offenses in the future, as the judgment says, they must "be responsible for the aftermath": "We try to make the youngsters understand that they choose their own behavior, and they must be responsible for the results."

"Because halfway houses are not long-term places for these kids, they ultimately must return home or enter society. The best thing is to develop at an early stage their ability to be independent thinkers and control themselves," she says.

On the other hand, when these youngsters have "served their time," or are judged to no longer require the protection of a halfway house, they can leave, and can choose to continue studying or to go to work. The social workers provide personalized guidance and assistance before each teen leaves.

The social workers search for job opportunities for the youngsters which will allow them to come into contact with the community and learn job skills. Some halfway houses also offer vocational training workshops. Tsu Huai Foundation administrative secretary Li Chien-ching gives an example of a case where a girl had been a prostitute. With the guidance of the halfway house, she learned the skills to be a beautician, and today she owns her own shop and is married with a child.

Not enough to go around

"Although halfway houses cannot completely replace the juvenile detention facilities, they can provide the authorities with another option in handling youthful offenders," says legislator Hsieh Chi-ta, who is very familiar with the juvenile justice system. Halfway houses are like a sickbed, and jails are like the intensive care unit: "Those who aren't as seriously ill can just rest in a sickbed, but the dangerous cases need special treatment."

Currently, halfway houses are only a kind of flexible option in the judicial process. In the majority of cases, the decision to use one comes from the individual judge. Hsieh feels that the halfway house system should be formally incorporated into the "Law for Handling Youth Crimes," which would give it formal status and have it become a link in the judicial chain.

Of course, the youth who need halfway house services have not all broken the law.

Annie Yu points out: "As it now stands, we usually have to wait until a child breaks a law before we know that child has a problem. Only then can we plan corrective guidance. In actuality, the majority of children show signs in their behavior before they actually commit any crimes, such as running away from home, or playing truant from school. If the home, school or local government could discover and report this in a timely fashion, it would be possible to prevent many crimes by young people." If halfway house service networks were extended to cover all of Taiwan, services could be provided for such youth no matter when or where the need arose.

Of course, that's the ideal situation. In actual practice, although there are no formal statistics available, judging from the severity of the youthful offender problem Taiwan has too small a supply and too large a demand for such services.

Taipei City Government Bureau of Social Affairs Youth Welfare Department Head Chou Li-hwa says that his department currently has about 500 cases in process. This volume means that her workers are busy running all over, trying to find resources, including finding suitable civil organizations to open halfway houses. The Song-te House is one such facility opened at their urging. Chou estimates that, if the amendments to the youthful offender law are passed, they will be facing a minimum of 5000 cases. The results of such an imbalance between supply and demand would be unthinkable.

Looking at the situation province-wide, Taipei's social services enjoy a greater concentration of professional staff, civil groups and capital-so great, in fact, that other regions find it difficult to cope.

"Young people end up with a very small part of the social welfare pie", says Hsinchu Catholic Social Services Center Director Vincent Tseng, who is responsible for the "Blue Sky Home" plan.

Calling out the little angels

The Blue Sky Home is housed in a renovated Catholic church in Hsinchu County's Paoshan Township. The cost of the facilities was shared between the Catholic Church and the Ministry of the Interior. However, as the center neared completion, when an attempt was made to raise NT$20 million operating capital for the home's initial period of operations, original hopes of financial support from the technology-rich Hsinchu Science Park did not pan out. Vincent Tseng lobbied for a year, but was able to raise only a little over NT$400,000. Adding to this sum the income from sales and donations, the figure still hardly passed the NT$4 million mark. People wondered if the Blue Sky Home would turn into an empty shell.

"I guess the problem was the idea. The average person thinks that old people or handicapped people are legitimate disadvantaged groups, and are more willing to help them financially. But when you start talking about young people who have behavioral problems, you run into a negative image," says Tseng.

"They can definitely cause social problems, but where are the roots of this behavior?" asks Pastor David Huang of the Youth Halfway House of the Christian Born Anew Fellowship. Pastor Huang gives an example from his own experience. He's 56 now, but in his younger days he ran wild, fighting, stealing, and so on, all as a result of the discrimination he experienced being the son of a concubine. It wasn't until the age of 15 that he met two foreign missionaries, who took him into the church and gave him the guidance that turned him into someone who could make a contribution to the community. Huang has never had the chance to ask what those two missionaries whom he views as "soul-savers" saw in him at that age, but he likes to tell this story:

There was a famous sculptor, who was out walking one day when he spied a piece of stone along the roadside. The stone had been thrown away, but through the sculptor's skill, it became a beautiful angel. When people asked him where he got it from, he answered: "I saw the beautiful angel inside the stone."

p.99

"We're home!" The "Youth Academy" run by the Kaohsiung branch of the Taiwan After-Care Association uses liberal management, allowing its young people to attend local schools. This maintainence of the youngsters' interactive ties with society makes the Academy a model halfway house.

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Halfway houses emphasize the functions of a real home, in order to provide what confused youngsters need to grow.

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"The nation has its laws, the home has its rules." Ilan's Tsu Huai Yuan Halfway House is housed in one floor of an apartment building. It lets the youngsters set their own rules and regulations for the home, which nurtures their self-control and lets them understand what it means to take responsibility for their actions.

p.103

I'll show them my best piece! I did all these in my spare time!

p.105

Pastor David Huang, director of the Youth Halfway House in Peitou, often encourages and helps the teenagers in his care to get part-time jobs while in school, in order to help them learn a skill.

Pastor David Huang, director of the Youth Halfway House in Peitou, often encourages and helps the teenagers in his care to get part-time jobs wh ile in school, in order to help them learn a skill.