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Improving Social Safety Nets

  • Data Source:Department of Planning
  • Created:2019-02-25
  • Last Updated:2019-10-01

      Taiwan's programs that "Improving social safety nets" combine community-based protection systems with family-centered integration services to safeguard individuals. These programs identify crises, reduce recidivism, and promote zero tolerance for domestic violence. The focus of intervention has shifted from "person-centered" to "family-centered" based on the novel concept of integrating efforts to improve diversified family support services. These include prevention via early identification of families who are vulnerable or in crisis, and construction of a public-private partnership processing model by diversifying risk types or levels.

Policy Effectiveness and Future Prospects

  1. Social welfare service centers established to integrate social assistance and welfare services: The government has set up 154 social welfare service centers nationwide. This complements social workers’ efforts to improve accessibility of welfare services and expand local service networks by providing more services for communities.
  2. Expand advanced warning mechanisms: An enhanced information system was established to expand early warning systems to identify vulnerable children and help frontline staff identify households at risk.
  3. Develop a diversified family supporting service program: The government continues to inventory need for and availability of community resources. To serve those with insufficient income or unmet needs, the government will cultivate community resources to build a network to complement families’ diverse situations.
  4. “One-stop window”: We set up a contact point to receive reports and assign social workers to assess these reports.

Taiwan's government seeks to improve the social safety net with attention to the diverse perspectives of individuals, families and communities. When faced with problems such as poverty, unemployment or suicide, service systems can integrate resources and cooperate to help people in need.


     Drug abuse is a global issue rooted in physical, psychological, social and economic factors that impacts individual health, social stability and national development. An issue with such complex origins and wide-ranging implications requires collaborative efforts by government and private sectors. Effective countermeasures and active enforcement of these measures are needed to reduce drug abuse.

      To control drug problems, enhance anti-drug environments and deter the emergence of new drugs, the government conducted a comprehensive inventory of various organizations' efforts and used this inventory to plan a new strategy. Approved by the Executive Yuan in July 2017, this has become an important blueprint for government departments executing drug prevention and treatment work. This strategy encompasses anti-drug monitoring, drug prevention, drug sweeps, rehabilitation and strategies for amending laws and regulations. As the authority in charge of the anti-drug strategy, the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Food and Drug Administration introduced the following suggestions regarding drug monitoring and rehabilitation:

      For anti-drug monitoring, two sub-strategies are preventing importation of illicit drug raw materials in the name of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) and expanding inspection capabilities to detect emerging drugs by establishing standard analytical profiles for them. Border checks and controls focus on API, with capabilities to test new drugs reinforced by multi-agency efforts to block new psychoactive substances.

      Regarding drug rehabilitation, resources have shifted under the new anti-drug strategy. Besides taking over local centers for drug abuse prevention and control, the MOHW established four integrated drug abuse medical demonstration centers, with at least two centers to open in the south and east of Taiwan next year. Cooperation between local centers and these demonstration centers can leverage local resources and medical care to provide services such as proximity treatment, vocational training and employment mediation for people with drug problems.

      TFDA cooperates with relevant ministries to handle integrated anti-drug strategies and to promote drug abuse awareness through multi-channel advocacy using drug-related and drug-rejecting techniques to reduce the number of new drug users. The Ministry of Health and Welfare will also cooperate in the Drug Prevention Fund’s establishment in 2019. This will introduce more non-governmental organization resources and accelerate deployment of human resources and multiple treatment programs. Referral services and information on drug addiction cases and treatment networks are among the government's continuing efforts to reduce drugs' impacts on public health, social welfare and economic development, and to improve Taiwan's quality of life.