SOCIAL WELFARE
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Silvermine Bay Holiday Camp, the Management Committee of which is appointed by the Standing Conference of Youth Organizations. The open-air football and basketball pitches in the various playgrounds administered by the Children's Playgrounds Association are in constant use.
The number of youth hostels has increased to six with the erection at Yau Yat Chuen, Kowloon, of the Y.W.C.A. Maurine Grantham Centre.
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In order to have sufficient trained staff available for the expansion of youth welfare programmes, the Social Wel- fare Office continues to run a Youth Leadership Train- ing Course, in co-operation with the Grantham, Training College. Two short but intensive courses in club work were also run, one by the Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association for ten, and the other by the Social Welfare Office for 31, leaders of roof-top clubs in Resettlement Estates. Towards the end of the year the Girl Guides Association sent two Guiders to Australia for a concentrated five-weeks course of training.
In November the Standing Conference of Youth Organi- zations, with the practical support and encouragement of the Government, organized a very successful ten-day Seminar on 'Social Group Work Among Youth', in which seven Asian Commonwealth territories (including Hong Kong) participated.
Care of the Disabled. Events during the latter half of 1957 augured well for the development of services for the physically and mentally handicapped. The Special Welfare Services Section, which concerns itself with the problem of disabled groups and co-operates with the voluntary welfare societies which specialize in these services, is closely asso- ciated with this trend. The Assistant Social Welfare Officer (Special Welfare Services) represented the Colony at the Seventh World Congress of the International Society for the Welfare of Cripples held in London from 22nd - 26th July. In October a Committee on the Rehabilitation of the