Sidelights｜Why Is It Still Hard to Understand Despite All This Talking? — A Dialogue Between Law and Social Work

Compiled by｜Charles, Alyssa, Melody, Eva, Frank

Following the social worker case involving the child Kai-kai, robust dialogues between social workers and legal professionals have unfolded across social media platforms, media outlets, and forums hosted by various organizations and universities. In addition to a group of volunteer lawyers conducting legal popularization lectures themed "When Social Workers Encounter Criminal Cases" for institutions and schools, the Judicial Reform Foundation (JRF) also hosted two events focusing on "how to dialogue" across different professions.

Both events featured Attorney Lee Ming-ru and social worker Shen Houshan as speakers. Held just one week apart, the events introduced "shadow observers" for the first time as a third perspective alongside the speakers and audience. The goal was to check whether we were accommodating the dialogue needs at the venue and to make adjustments for the second week's event. One of the shadow observers even helped design a questionnaire prior to the second session to facilitate a smoother event (although ultimately not distributed due to time constraints, it was repurposed into a preliminary Slido Q&A box and used to help the moderator of the second session understand the context). Invited as moderators were Professor Tsai Po-fang, who has participated in the Law and Society Association in recent years, and Professor Huang Chao-kai, who received sociological training during his master's studies. Guided by different moderators, distinct sparks were generated, particularly during the dialogue segments.

I. Hou-shan's Presentation: Analysis of the Gap Between the Judgment in the Kai-kai Case and Social Work Practice

The speaker discussed the first-instance judgment of the Kai-kai case. A social work practitioner shared their observations on the judgment and analyzed the discrepancies between the court's determinations and practical operations from a social work perspective. The sharing focused on contentious issues such as whether the social worker held the status of a guarantor, whether they fulfilled the duty of care, and whether a causal relationship existed between their conduct and the case outcome. It also explained the operations of the adoption system and potential problems within the current system, serving as a foundation for subsequent discussion and exchange.

(1) Cognitive Gaps Exist Between the Court's Determination of the Social Worker's Guarantor Status and Social Work Practice

The speaker noted that the court's determination that the social worker held guarantor status was primarily built on grounds such as the Child Welfare League Foundation (CWLF) providing out-of-home placement services, the foster parent representing a source of danger, and the social worker voluntarily assuming care responsibilities. However, social work practice holds a different view.

Social work practitioners believe that the care of a child by a partner foster parent during the adoption period is not equivalent to a legal "placement," as it lacks a court ruling or government intervention, and the CWLF is not a placement institution possessing public authority. The social worker and the foster parent share a cooperative relationship rather than a supervisory one; under the law, the management and supervision of foster parents are the responsibility of home-based childcare centers rather than adoption social workers.

Furthermore, the speaker pointed out that at the time of the incident, the system had not yet incorporated cooperative adoption foster parents into formal placement supervision mechanisms, constituting a systemic loophole. Therefore, it is inappropriate to hold private social workers entirely responsible for supervisory duties based on this.

(2) Hindsight Should Not Be Used to Judge Whether the Duty of Care Was Fulfilled

The speaker stated that while different opinions persist within the social work community regarding whether the duty of care was fulfilled in this case, judgments should return to the information and work context available at the time, rather than relying on retrospective evaluations based on subsequent outcomes.

The presentation pointed out that the professional objectives of adoption social workers and child protection social workers differ; the former focus on matching children with adoptive families and are not primarily tasked with identifying child abuse. During the incident, the foster parent continuously reported the child's condition to the social worker, who understood the situation through a trauma-informed perspective as adjustment issues, and continually arranged psychological resources and follow-ups. Meanwhile, medical personnel did not detect any obvious anomalies during medical visits. Consequently, the speaker argued that foreseeing abuse under those circumstances was not easy.

The speaker also mentioned that the child abuse judgment indicators and visitation requirements cited by the court may not necessarily align with the applicable regulations and job duties of adoption social workers at the time, noting that aside from monthly visits, social workers continuously tracked cases through communication, referrals, and resource linkage throughout the intervals.

(3) Room for Discussion Remains Regarding Causal Reasoning

The speaker expressed that the judgment's reasoning regarding the causal relationship between the social worker's omission and Kai-kai's death was relatively brief, primarily inferring that the outcome could have been prevented had the social worker taken more proactive actions. However, this line of inference warrants further discussion.

(4) Conclusion

The speaker concluded that this case reflects a gap between the court's understanding of the role of adoption social workers and systemic operations and social work practice. Issues involving guarantor status, the duty of care, and systemic design will continue to be monitored as the case proceeds to the second instance.

Feedback from Social Worker Participants after the Taipei Session

Because this session approached the topic even from a social worker's perspective by "discussing the judgment," participants struggled to articulate their thoughts within such a framework, even when they had ideas.

This may have contributed to what the Taipei session shadow observer noted: even though there were more social worker participants at the venue, the legal professionals ended up doing most of the talking!

Upon receiving this feedback, we reminded the moderator of the second session to remain mindful of this and managed to collect additional questions from social-worker-background participants at the second session:

1. How will the second instance of the case develop, and what future impacts will it have on social work practitioners and how should they respond?
   
2. The social worker in this case was merely an employee/affiliate of the CWLF; why does the responsibility fall entirely on the individual social worker while the CWLF bears no responsibility?
   
3. Did the social workers' professional association request investigations or/and disciplinary actions before the court rendered its judgment?
   
4. Is independent adjudication a more neutral state, or does it restrict the information available to judges? Would it be more appropriate to submit cases to citizen adjudication?
   

II. Ming-ju's Presentation: Dilemmas and Reflections in the Dialogue Between Legal and Social Work Professions

The speaker shared that since the announcement of the first-instance judgment in the Kai-kai social worker case, she has continuously engaged in analyzing the judgment and legal popularization work, hoping to reduce the confusion among the social work community and the general public caused by insufficient information through explaining the judgment structure, legal terminology, and related background. However, through ongoing dialogue, the speaker gradually realized that the gap between the legal and social work communities stems not only from differing legal interpretations but also involves differences in professional language, working contexts, and values. Therefore, this sharing focused on these cross-professional communication issues.

Nevertheless, the speaker also clarified a premise: this is, after all, a judicial case, and dialogue within the judicial arena is not "equal." The sense of feeling dictated to and disempowered experienced by the social work community in these dialogues likely stems from this. However, the dialogue discussed in this event is not limited to the courtroom or judgments. The phenomenon of "why is it still hard to understand" is bidirectional from the perspective of public dialogue: legal professionals are unimpressed by what social workers say, while social workers feel perplexed by the thoughts of legal professionals. The sharing of insights was based on these dynamics.

(1) Divergent Understandings of Professional Terminology and Differing Focuses of Attention

The speaker stated that prior to the announcement of the judgment, the primary concern within the social work community was whether the offense of "falsification of entries in professional documents" would impact future record-keeping, but the actual content of the judgment ruled out this concern. In contrast to the media portrayal of the social worker fabricating documents and colluding with the foster parent, the core focus determined by the judgment was that the social worker placed excessive trust in the foster parent and failed to identify signs of child abuse.

Consequently, the speaker used lectures, podcasts, and explanatory infographics to help social workers and the public understand the judgment structure and legal terminology, thereby reducing informational confusion.

However, the speaker also discovered that simple "legal popularization" cannot always truly "dispel doubts." Different understandings of the same terms by legal professionals and social workers make it difficult for both sides to establish a common basis for discussion. The speaker pointed out that legal professionals feel social workers do not understand concepts such as "guarantor status," "voluntary assumption," and "source of danger," while social workers feel legal professionals do not understand concepts like "out-of-home placement," "primary caseworkers," and the "social safety net." Even when discussing the same vocabulary, interpretations tend to diverge, hindering mutual comprehension of each other's arguments.

At the same time, it can be observed that the legal and social work communities focus on different priorities. Social workers emphasize the impact of guarantor status on practical work, whereas legal professionals pay more attention to criminal law elements such as the duty of care and causality. Some legal professionals realize that judicial practice in Taiwan has never strictly defined guarantor status, leading them to believe that debating whether a social worker holds guarantor status is not the most critical issue in this case, and may even be a waste of effort. Yet, the social work community remains concerned that the grounds upon which the court constructs guarantor status could affect overall social work practice in the future. Nonetheless, through continuous exchange, everyone helped brainstorm arguments and legal maneuvers, which is not a bad thing. For example, the "principle of permissible reliance," which was not heavily discussed in the first instance, still presents an opportunity for argument in the second instance. Meanwhile, the social work community should continue to organize its practical experience to form an industry consensus, serving as an important foundation for judicial understanding.

Supplementary Note from the Taipei Session Moderator

In linguistics, besides whether the "semantics" layer of linguistic communication is clear, the "pragmatics" layer is also very important. Sometimes mutual persuasion fails because you know the underlying reason "why this person is saying these words"—for instance, thinking, "You are explaining these terms just to help this person acquit." Different presuppositions regarding "pragmatics" obstruct understanding and dialogue.

The speaker also found that the deepest and most difficult area to communicate involves the many different layers of the "duty to act." The standards and connotations of the "responsibility/duty to protect" are not only points where legal professionals and social workers fail to communicate, but also issues over which social workers themselves experience infighting. Citing teachers caring for students as an example, the speaker explained that while social workers indeed bear responsibilities for care and visitation, do they thereby bear the results-based liability under criminal law for preventing crime and piecing together the truth? Contractual liability, administrative liability, professional liability, and criminal liability are not entirely identical; conflating them easily causes discussions to lose focus.

(2) Beyond This Case, Legal Professionals and Social Workers Hold Fundamentally Different Imaginations of Discretion and Treatment

Many legal professionals imagine social work through a path where welfare services function as the state's payment administration: how are they arranged? There is a legal source → implementation within that scope → execution methods serving as "discretion" for frontline social workers to make decisions. However, when we ask social workers where the "legitimacy of their discretion" comes from versus where the "legitimacy of their treatment" comes from, do they sound the same? Obviously not. For the former, social workers might answer the Domestic Violence Prevention Act or the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act; for the latter, however, social workers think of client self-determination, informed consent, and other prerequisites that truly enable a social worker to "work together" with a client.

The key behind this difference is that social work is not merely an executor of state welfare benefits; to a greater extent, it possesses grassroots, bottom-up characteristics of standing alongside the people to fight for societal and governmental change.

The speaker pointed out that even though competent authorities have recently called for increased social worker powers following the judgment, this may push social workers toward becoming law enforcement officers in terms of values. As a lawyer, the speaker often advises organizations during legal popularization on how to systematically prepare standard operating procedures (SOPs), yet feels deeply apprehensive about this trend. She hopes future institutional reforms can balance frontline social workers' professional autonomy and the core value of building relationships with clients, avoiding an overemphasis on supervision and public authority that would alter the essence of social work.

Post-Event Observation of Shadow Observers' Transcripts

After the events, we also asked the shadow observers to review the transcripts of both sessions to observe the similarities and differences in dialogue:

(1) Hou-shan (Social Worker): Identical Core Framework, but the Taichung Session Placed Greater Emphasis on Social Work Practice Contexts

The core contents of both speeches primarily focused on discussions of "guarantor status," including:

• Whether the CWLF and social workers bear guarantor obligations due to their professional duties;
  
• The scope of a social worker's duty to protect children;
  
• Whether foster parents belong to a source of danger that social workers must continuously supervise;
  
• Whether social workers bear a duty to act under criminal law due to the voluntary assumption of duties, etc.
  

However, my personal impression from reading the transcript of the Taipei session and participating in the Taichung session symposium was that the Taipei session leaned more toward analyzing "why the judge considered the social worker to have guarantor status," whereas the Taichung session featured more discussion on "why social workers believe the judge misunderstood guarantor status." In other words, the Taipei session focused more on legal analysis and explanation, while the Taichung session focused more on the gaps in cognitive understanding between the legal and social work professions, explaining from a social worker's perspective why the social work community felt anxious about this issue.

Increased discussion on trauma-informed care: In the Taichung session, Teacher Hou-shan spent considerable time explaining that Kai-kai had experienced multiple changes in caregivers; children who have experienced trauma may exhibit behaviors such as head-banging or refusing to eat; and certain symptoms do not necessarily signify abuse but may manifest as trauma responses.

Teacher Hou-shan further explained that when social workers observe these behaviors, they may not directly interpret them as abuse; conversely, they might think the child has only begun exhibiting accumulated trauma symptoms after entering a safer environment. While this content was mentioned in the Taipei session, it was relatively less prominent.

(2) CEO Ming-ju: Consistent Core Arguments, but the Taichung Session Placed Greater Importance on the Feelings of the Social Work Community

CEO Ming-ju's core themes across both sessions were relatively consistent, including:

• Reasons for the JRF's concern regarding this case: Both sessions mentioned that the JRF has long monitored issues of "non-disclosure of investigation," and initial concerns stemmed from information disclosure and procedural justice during the investigative stage.
  
• The JRF's role and stance prior to the judgment: Both sessions emphasized that the JRF is not determining the social worker's guilt or innocence; what the JRF cares about is whether procedures are fair and whether the general public can understand the case through due process.
  
• The same word, two different professional meanings: For example, "placement vs. out-of-home placement," and "guarantor vs. guarantor status." Legal professionals and social work personnel may use the same vocabulary, but the underlying connotations differ. CEO Ming-ju believes that many social controversies and discussions in this case actually stem from cross-professional communication failures rather than purely legal issues.
  

(3) The Greatest Difference

I believe the biggest difference between the two sessions lies not in the content, but in the angles of entry.

1. Taipei Session: Approached from the perspective of judicial reform and procedural justice. The Taipei session focused more on "non-disclosure of investigation," "judicial procedures," "evidence and record issues," and "how society understands the case." Therefore, it felt more like answering questions such as: "What went wrong in the judicial procedure?" and "How should non-legal professionals read the judgment of this case?"
   
2. Taichung Session: Initiated from social worker experiences and emotions. As can be seen from the agenda arrangement of the Taichung session, participants were invited right at the beginning to introduce themselves, share their backgrounds (including the type of social work they engage in), explain why they attended the event, and express their feelings about the case. Building on this foundation, CEO Ming-ju noted that some people wanted to leave the social work profession because of this case, while others wanted to enter the field precisely because of it; everyone arrived carrying wounds, hoping to exchange and heal today...
   

Therefore, my personal impression is that the Taichung session placed greater emphasis on "the emotions of the social work community," "occupational trauma in social work," and "the communication gap between social workers and legal professionals." To some extent, the Taichung session hoped that by fostering more exchange and dialogue—using different social worker experiences, professional dialogue, and emotional repair as starting points—it could explore "why social workers and legal professionals keep talking past each other," while allowing the social work community to express their feelings more and reducing the exploration of legal dimensions. While the core arguments of the two speakers did not differ significantly across the two symposiums, adapting to the backgrounds of the participants, the Taichung session noticeably increased content on social work practice, trauma-informed care, and cross-professional communication, making the overall focus of discussion distinct from the Taipei session.

Shadow Observers' Reflections

We are grateful for the help of the shadow observers in these two events, which provided us with more insights to keep in mind for future "dialogue lectures." Their sincere feedback is recorded below as reminders for upcoming related activities.

I. Observer A

(1) Observations

1. Although the ratio of participants with social work backgrounds to those with legal backgrounds was not overly disproportionate in this meeting, participants with legal backgrounds were indeed more willing to speak up. Therefore, it remains uncertain with what kind of mindset social-worker-background attendees arrived at and left the lecture. Perhaps because the session began by analyzing the contents of the judgment text, it set the tone for the subsequent direction of the lecture around the judgment's determinations. However, if the Taichung session had predominantly social-work-background registrants, the dialogue content likely would have been vastly different.
   
2. The post-event exchange time also tended toward academic discussions, though it remains unclear whether this aligned with the dialogue direction anticipated by the JRF and the participants. Consequently, it is recommended to survey participants' expectations of the lecture beforehand (detailed below). For instance, as an observer from a purely legal background myself, after reading the judgment, I wanted to hear friends with social work backgrounds share the actual operational processes of social work practice and the dilemmas they face, providing me with an alternative angle to judge whether this judgment is reasonable and preventing myself from relying on a "God's-eye view" to determine criminality.
   

(2) Recommendations

1. Pre-event survey: In addition to surveying participants' backgrounds beforehand, attendees could also be asked to briefly fill out their initial intentions, issues of concern, and basic stances regarding participation in this meeting. This would allow the organizers to better understand the needs and expectations of attendees and consequently adjust the direction of discussion and facilitation methods. If a dialogue lecture has a small headcount, it might be possible to provide more prior explanation and sharing tailored to the specific content that participants of individual sessions particularly wish to understand, exchange, or discuss. For example, in this meeting, participants seemed especially concerned with the issue of whether social worker Chen fulfilled the duty of care in this case, displaying considerable responses and interactions (such as nodding, note-taking, and active responses) during related discussions, which indicates that the topic can provoke a high degree of resonance and reflection. If future sessions can further provide background contexts, differing viewpoints, or practical cases specifically targeting such highly debatable topics, it should help promote deeper and more constructive exchanges.
   
2. Post-event feedback: Participants can also be invited to fill out feedback forms after the event, allowing them to respond to whether the lecture satisfied their initial intentions and expectations upon registration, and whether there were aspects during the event they wished to further discuss and exchange but could not fully expand upon. Additionally, participants could share their feelings, gains, and reflections during the listening process—such as which topics easily resonated, which discussions lacked sufficient time, and which viewpoints left a deep impression.
   

II. Observer B

(1) On-Site Observations and the Dilemma of Cross-Professional Dialogue

As a participant observer of this event, I deeply felt the enormous gap between the legal and social work communities in terms of "language" and "thought context." As speakers Ming-ju and Hou-shan noted, legal professionals are accustomed to performing logical deductions using "retrospective reviews" based on judgment results and criminal law elements (such as guarantor status, causality, and duty of care). In contrast, social work practitioners start from "prior" resource linkages, trauma-informed care, and practical dilemmas. During on-site exchanges, one could observe that participants with legal backgrounds were more accustomed to speaking and setting the academic framework, whereas participants with social work backgrounds displayed stronger defensiveness, perhaps due to unfamiliarity with legal terminology or fears that their practical work might be improperly criminalized. Divergent definitions of terms like "placement" and "primary caseworkers" made it difficult at times for discussions to focus on the same plane, which also attests to the initial hardships of cross-boundary dialogue.

(2) Personal Reflections: Structural Rights and Responsibilities Loopholes Seen Through the Dispute Over Guarantor Status

Through the clashes between both sides in the lecture, I managed to break free from the judgment perspective of a single case. I believe that spending substantial time at the venue arguing over "whether the social worker possesses guarantor status" precisely reflects severe structural design flaws throughout the adoption system. For high-risk placement activities like the adoption of vulnerable children, the current system relies merely on a "home-based childcare contract" to delineate responsibilities—a serious ambiguity of rights and responsibilities in both legal and practical terms. Operating social welfare through "public-private collaboration" is unproblematic in itself, but when public authority retreats behind the scenes, evolving into a loose outsourcing form devoid of "clear statutory rights, responsibilities, and obligations," loopholes are bound to emerge. When top-level system design and responsibility delineation remain unclear, corresponding supervisory mechanisms to genuinely catch children's rights are naturally absent. Therefore, we should not solely focus on "pursuing the criminal liability and obligations of frontline social workers"; rather, we should look back and examine whether loopholes allowing shirking of responsibility existed from the outset in the system design for safeguarding any vulnerable rights. Only by fundamentally clarifying and improving structural and organizational rights and responsibilities is the key to preventing tragedies from recurring.

(3) Recommendations for Future Similar Lectures

1. Provide a "Cross-Professional Vocabulary Comparison Table" prior to the event: Given that legal professionals and social workers hold drastically different understandings of the same terms (such as placement and responsibility), it is recommended that the organizers provide a simple glossary or explanatory infographic before future events. This enables legal professionals to first understand the boundaries of social workers' administrative and professional responsibilities, and allows social workers to first comprehend the definitions of criminal law elements, helping reduce friction in on-site communication and allowing discussions to reach the core more quickly.
   
2. Introduce "Practical Scenario Simulations" to replace pure academic exploration: To prevent post-event exchanges from devolving into one-way legal academic reasoning, it is recommended that future dialogues adopt a "scenario simulation" approach. For example: given a common ambiguous practical scenario, social workers are asked to share "what we must do in practice," followed by legal professionals analyzing "what the legal risks of doing so are." Through cross-comparisons of concrete scenarios, legal professionals can set aside their "God's-eye view," while social workers can obtain concrete and actionable defensive practical advice.
   

III. Observer C

(1) Because Most Attendees at the Taichung Session Were Social Work Personnel, Overall Discussions Focused More on Social Work Practice and Practitioners' Feelings

Before the event, CEO Ming-ju mentioned hoping to moderately reduce the explanation of legal analysis and judgment content compared to the Taipei session, and encouraged social work personnel to share their own experiences and thoughts more. Judging from the overall arrangement of the event, allowing attendees to share their backgrounds, work experiences, and reasons and expectations for participating in the event during the opening indeed helped clarify the concerns held by social work practitioners regarding the judgment of this case.

I believe the anxiety expressed by most social work personnel did not stem from simply assuming the court must have judged incorrectly or that the social worker in this case bore zero responsibility, but rather from worries over how the legal interpretations presented in this judgment's reasoning will influence courts' determinations of the scope of social workers' duties and legal liabilities in the future. In other words, many individuals cared more about future practical developments and whether they might become the next parties facing judicial proceedings under similar circumstances.

(2) Although the Event Was Designed to Foster Exchange and Discussion Among Social Workers, Overall, Social Work Personnel's Sharing Remained Relatively Reserved, Offering Fewer Deep Dives into Issues at the Level of Practical Operations

What I found somewhat regrettable was that although the agenda and moderation direction encouraged social workers to share their viewpoints and experiences, most attendees remained relatively reticent in practice, yielding limited concrete feedback from a social work practice perspective.

If opportunities arise in the future to collect more opinions and experience sharing from frontline social work personnel, it might be possible to further understand the problems social workers are truly worried about—as well as why the judgment in this case sparked such widespread discussion and resonance within the social work circle—from dimensions such as practical workflows, system design, and working environments. At the same time, this offers an opportunity to more concretely clarify the differing perspectives of the legal and social work professions in understanding this case, and to further contemplate whether adjustments to systems, workflows, or cross-professional communication mechanisms can respond to and alleviate social work personnel's anxieties regarding future occupational risks.

IV. Observer D

More than ten social workers participated in this lecture, which is not an insignificant number. However, observed from the standpoint of legal professionals or ordinary individuals, the lecture failed to yield a deeper understanding of social workers' genuine feelings or thoughts about the case, let alone offer a glimpse into their practical work contents and the problems they face. Particularly, judging from the atmosphere of self-introductions before the lecture began, social workers mostly explained their purpose in attending the lecture vaguely as "hoping to understand different ideas." Judging from the questions raised by social workers, one could only gather that social workers primarily wanted to know how to respond and protect themselves subsequently. Although the speakers of this lecture strived to grant social workers more time to share, it was regrettable that social workers' deeper thoughts still could not be fully elicited.

References

• Court Observation Reconstruction Platform
  
• What did the social worker judgment in the Kai-kai case say? Why is the social work community pushing back? How should loopholes in Taiwan's social safety net be patched? ft. Judicial Reform Foundation CEO Lee Ming-ru, "My Formidable Friends" EP 194 ｜ 77 Eddy
  
• When Social Workers Encounter Criminal Cases (Part I)
  
• When Social Workers Encounter Criminal Cases (Part II)
  
• The "Evil" of Omission? ── An Introduction to the Outline of the Development of "Guarantor Status" in Our Country's Practice