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SOCIAL WELFARE
available in both local and overseas universities, is supplemented by training programmes directly organised or sponsored by the department. These provide training for social workers without sufficient academic qualifications as well as field work studies for social work students of the universities and opportunities for social workers employed in the Public Service and the voluntary welfare organisations to keep pace with new developments, methods and social changes all over the world.
The promotion and co-ordination of training programmes for social workers is the work of the Advisory Committee on Social Work Training, on which the universities, certain voluntary welfare organisations and the department are represented. The committee also advises Government, the universities and the voluntary welfare organisations_on matters concerning social work education.
Funds for social work training through scholarships and bursaries are provided partly by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Cor- poration, partly by Government and partly by the Social Work Training Fund, which is controlled by a statutory committee of which the Director of Social Welfare is ex officio Chairman. Funds expended from these sources in 1969 amounted to some $198,000, enabling some 12 recipients to pursue various social work courses in both local and overseas universities.
The new Lady Trench Day Nursery and Training Centre was scheduled to be completed by March 1970, providing both theoret- ical and practical training for a far greater number of social workers than the department can train at present. The centre will be the first of its kind in South East Asia.
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