Long-term fostering gives underprivileged children new opportunities

Last year, Han, a 5-year-old girl with a learning disability, became a member of a family in Shanxi province.

Han is an orphan from a local welfare institution. She has been placed with the Zhang family, which has registered with the provincial long-term foster care system.

The names of the girl and her family have been changed to protect their privacy.

"Since Han came here, my life is no longer boring - she has brought us so much fun and laughter," said her foster mother, Zhang.

"Before she came to our home, my husband and I usually watched TV at night, or went out to play mahjong. Sometimes, we didn't even talk. But now Han is here, she talks about school, friends, and sometimes, she just babbles. My husband and I watch her little performances and it is so much fun," she said.

Zhang and her husband, who are farmers, are not Han's only benefactors. She also received a high level of care from her foster family.

"When Han first arrived, she did not know how to put on her clothes. I spent a year repeatedly showing her how to put on her pants and socks. Now she is able to put them on by herself, but she still struggles with shirts and buttons," Zhang, 53, said.

Now they are one, both Han and the Zhang family have benefited from the long-term foster-care program, which matches less-privileged children from welfare institutions with willing foster families.

Long-term fostering means more children can find a family to belong to, said Ian Milligan, international lead for the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland, an organization based at the University of Strathclyde that supports children's well-being.

"Compared with foster care, adoption is a bigger commitment. Many families prefer to adopt 'healthy' and 'younger' children," Milligan said, adding that fostering provides an alternative model for other groups of children - those who are older or have special needs - to be loved in a family.

Robert Glover OBE, founder and executive director of Care for Children, an international charity headquartered in Beijing, said the family is a crucial plank in the lives of children who have been adopted or fostered: "The family unit is the most vital component of society. In the family, children can be properly nurtured to develop into healthy, responsible members of society."

Care for Children, which has worked with welfare institutions in China for 18 years, aims to create a positive alternative to institutional care for disadvantaged children through local family-based care.

Over the course of nearly two decades, the charity has trained more than 5,000 employees in care institutions and helped Chinese orphans.