Chinese families with more than two foster children will from December be required to give one up as a result of changes to government regulations.

Previously, families were allowed to foster up to three children, but the new rules reduce that to just two, the People’s Daily reported yesterday.

Zhang Zhenyue, deputy director of the social welfare and charity division at the Department of Civil Affairs in east China’s Auhui Province, said the aim of the new regulations is to ensure better living standards for children in foster care.

“Most youngsters are fostered by rural families, which often struggle to meet the basic financial requirements,” he said.

“That means that a lot of children grow up in conditions that are far from ideal.”

As a result, some youngsters will be removed from the families in which they are currently living and found alternative homes, he said.

On a more positive note, the new rules will for the first time allow for the fostering of street children, who in the past were ineligible for the scheme.

Under the current rules, which were drafted in 2003, youngsters could be fostered only if their family history could be fully documented. Street children often have an indeterminate heritage and were therefore ineligible.

“Foster parents taking in street children will face a lot of new challenges, as they often have deep psychological problems because of the lives they have lived,” Zhang said. “They tend to be more sensitive and can appear unsociable and aloof, which will make it difficult for foster parents to communicate with them.”

A final change to the rules is that families with a child of their own aged under 6 will no longer be eligible to foster, the report said.

According to officials from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, about 30,000 children are living in foster homes across the country, the report said.

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