Family and Child Welfare

The SWD and non-governmental organisations provide a variety of family
and child welfare services. The overall objective is to preserve and
strengthen the family as a unit through assisting individuals and families to
identify and prevent or solve their problems.

Hong Kong has 65 family services centres. Services provided include
counselling, referrals for child care, elderly and rehabilitation services, job
placement, financial and housing assistance. With an establishment of 706
family caseworkers at the end of 1997, the centres handled a total of
75 500 cases during the year.

To help strengthen the families, about 4 814 programmes such as talks,
small group activities and mass media programmes were conducted by
79 family life education workers of the department and non-governmental
organisations.

Support to families in need of assistance in home management, child care,
and care for the elderly and disabled, is provided by 52 family aide
workers and 124 home help teams. A family care demonstration and
resource centre provides training in practical home management and
caring skills, as well as resource materials for clients and social workers.
The 19 family activity and resource centres set up in government-run
community centres provide a drop-in service, mutual support and early
identification and referral of cases in need of intensive casework service.

The clinical psychological service, with a staff of 49 clinical
psychologists, provides in-depth assessment and treatment to people
suffering from psychological and behavioural problems. It also provides
support to caseworkers and residential homes.

Three refuges for women provide 120 short-term residential places for
women and their children who are victims of domestic violence and for
girls at risk.

The problem of street-sleeping is tackled through the department's
outreaching teams and family services centres, plus temporary shelters,
urban hostels, and day relief centres operated by non-governmental
organisations. There is also a multi-disciplinary outreaching team
specifically serving elderly street sleepers on experimental basis.

The department operates a telephone hotline service which provides
information on welfare services to callers with pre-recorded messages or
through facsimile transmission 24 hours a day. Social workers are on
duty to provide immediate counselling and advice to customers in need,
especially to those in crisis situations.

A wide range of child welfare services is provided. An adoption service
arranges permanent homes for children in need. The Child Protective
Service provides early intervention and intensive casework service for the
protection of children whose safety is endangered by the action or neglect
of their parents, care-givers, causing physical or psychological harm,
gross neglect and sexual exploitation of the children. Residential child care
services are provided for children and young people who need care or
protection because of family crises or their behavioural or emotional
problems. At the end of 1997, there were 600 foster care places, 904
places in small group homes and 1 473 places in children's homes, boys'
and girls' homes and hostels.

Child care centres provide day-care facilities for children under the age of
six. All child care centres were registered under the Child Care Centres
Ordinance and Regulations. The Fee Assistance Scheme helps
low-income families in financial need to pay child care centre fees. New
legislative provisions to regulate childminders and mutual help child care
groups in order to strengthen protection of young children and to facilitate
occasional child care arrangements were implemented in September 1997.

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