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Social Welfare
At the tertiary level, 11 Family and Child Protective Services Units render specialised services, including crisis intervention, for cases of spouse or cohabitant battering, child abuse or child custody dispute.
Services for Children
Children and young people who are assessed to be in need of out-of-home care owing to family, behavioural or emotional problems have recourse to residential care services, with 3,676 such places provided at the year end. The department also works with three NGOs accredited under the Adoption Ordinance to arrange local or overseas adoption for children whose parents have abandoned or are unable to maintain them.
The department provides day child care services to support parents who cannot take care of their children temporarily because of work or other reasons. Together with the Education Bureau, it subsidises some stand-alone child care centres and kindergarten-cum-child care centres to provide full-day services. At the year end, child care centres across the territory had about 30,600 places, of which about 7,000 were government-subsidised. The department was funding another 434 Occasional Child Care Service places at these centres and had increased by phases the number of Extended Hours Service places to 2,254 since 2015-16. As well, it subsidises the Neighbourhood Support Child Care Project, which provides at least 954 places for needy families to receive flexible child care services from volunteers. In December, the department commissioned a consultancy study to advise on the long-term development of child care services.
In March 2016, the department launched a two-year Pilot Project on Child Care Training for Grandparents funded by the Lotteries Fund. It aims at strengthening family ties between generations, enhancing child care and reinforcing support for nuclear families by enabling grandparents to become well-trained child carers in the home setting. It also promotes active ageing of grandparents through life-long learning. This pilot project offers 540 training places.
Services for Young People
The objective of welfare services for young people is to help those aged between six and 24 become mature, responsible and contributing members of society through a range of preventive, supportive and remedial services provided by NGOs.
Integrated Children and Youth Services Centres
There are 138 Integrated Children and Youth Services Centres (ICYSCs), providing centre-based, outreach and school social work services to address young persons' developmental needs.
Outreach
Nineteen youth outreach teams provide services for high-risk youths and deal with juvenile gang issues. Eighteen designated ICYSCS offer outreach services at night to help youths who loiter at neighbourhood black spots get back on the right track.
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