Lee Jae-myung "Free Infant Developmental Screening... 1,000 Entries in 'Small but Certain Happiness' Contest in 3 Days"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Eun-mo] Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, announced on the 3rd that he will implement expanded support for free detailed examinations and counseling fees to assist families with infants and toddlers experiencing developmental delays.

Through his 37th 'So-hwak-haeng' (Small but Certain Happiness) pledge announced on Facebook that day, Candidate Lee said, "We will expand the infant and toddler development support services, which Gyeonggi Province started first, nationwide."

This service, which began in March last year, involves developmental support counselors assigned to city and county childcare support centers conducting free screening tests to early identify 'infants and toddlers with developmental delays' regardless of social class, and linking them to teacher and parent counseling and treatment support.

It is an attempt to overcome the limitations of the government’s current developmental evaluation for infants and toddlers, which is mainly based on questionnaires. According to Candidate Lee, within seven months of its launch, over 2,700 people received screening tests, and among them, 225 received treatment support.

Candidate Lee stated, "We will implement free screening tests at childcare support centers nationwide and establish a support system for counseling and treatment linkage," adding, "We will also significantly increase support for detailed developmental examination medical care and counseling fees." He further added, "We will hire professionally qualified developmental support counselors at childcare support centers and support them in operating various developmental programs."

Meanwhile, Candidate Lee announced that "more than 1,000 citizens have participated in the So-hwak-haeng public campaign as of today," noting that it has only been three days since the campaign started. He expressed deep gratitude for the enthusiastic interest and requested, "Since we are accepting So-hwak-haeng pledges until January 21, please submit many good proposals." He emphasized, "The people are better policy experts than any specialists. Even if there are thousands or tens of thousands of proposals, if they help improve the immediate lives of the people, politics must rightfully respond."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.