KFPA on the Brink of Closure

The Korea Foster Parents Association, which has served as a mediator between some 400 abandoned children and foster parents for 7 years since 1995, is now on the brink of closure after the government decided to stop funding the program.

Aiming to open family care support centers nationwide this year, the Ministry of Health and Welfare is now looking for organizations to spearhead the program via some 16 local governments. And the Seoul Government has dropped KFPA out of competition.

According to the government on March 23, an evaluation panel comprising two college professors, an expert on childcare, a Seoul Council member and a manager-level official from the Seoul Government selected `the Korea Welfare Foundation` as winner among four preferred candidates.

Under the decision, KWF will be in charge of family care program in Seoul area, taking over the mediating role of KFPA in effect.

˝The evaluation panel made their decision based on four criteria of public confidence, resources, planning capability and intention of an organization,˝ the Seoul Government explained. ˝KFPA has good intention, but it lags KWF in terms of planning capability and public confidence.˝

˝Rather than focusing on planning capability and resources, it should have examined how an organization has worked to connect children and families,˝ said Park Young-suk, Chairwoman of KFPA.

The association led by Chairwoman Park has been the only `family care organization` registered at MOHW. Park brought home and took care of a child born between a Korean woman and an American soldier in 1995, and opened the association in 1997 at the time of the financial crisis to accommodate growing number of abandoned children.

Members of the association and Park herself have mostly made donations for funds. To raise fund for a children`s playground at the association, she even quit her job at the British Embassy for severance pay and moved to the Australian Embassy.

˝We feel sorry that years of hard-working and know how of the association would have become in vain,˝ said Park.

Sun-Woo Kim sublime@donga.com