SOCIAL WELFARE
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Voluntary welfare organisations such as the Hong Kong Federa- tion of Youth Groups, the Scouts Association, the Girl Guides, the Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association, the YMCA, YWCA, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme, Caritas and many others. play an important part through the organisation of regular pro- grammes of activities.
FAMILY SERVICES
The family welfare services of the department consist of a wide- spread network of nine casework offices and supporting services for child care, the welfare of women, relief of those in need and rehabilitation of the disabled. The number of families and individuals receiving such services continued to increase and at the end of the year amounted to some 10,276.
The child care services of the department are responsible for adoptions and for the co-ordination of day care centres provided mainly by voluntary welfare organisations. The department itself does not run any child care institutions, with the exception of a reception centre which provides temporary care for children found abandoned or wandering. The department is responsible, however, for the administration of subventions to some 45 non-profit- making child care agencies providing a total of 14,467 places at the end of the year, and maintains close liaison with the Child Care Institutions and Day Nursery Supervisory Committees of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service as well as with UNICEF. Legal adoptions of children, made in accordance with the provisions of the Adoption Ordinance, require investigations by the department in the first instance as to the suitability of the adoptive parents. Although some adoptions are arranged between families the majority are in fact made in respect of abandoned children and orphans for whom the department is responsible for finding suitable homes and parents either locally or overseas. A total of 407 adop- tions were investigated during the year.
Children and women in moral danger are assisted partly through counselling and guidance for the individual as well as his or her family, partly through the relief of such immediate anxieties as care and accommodation for unmarried mothers and partly through vocational training. This work is done by two reputable voluntary welfare organisations, the Congregation of the Sisters of the Good