7. A summary of the senior staff appointments during the period under review will be found at Appendix 12. In Appendices 1 and 2 are summaries of the Social Welfare Office Estimates, which briefly give the story from the purely financial angle, and emphasize the importance placed on the encouragement of voluntary social work.
8. One of the disabilities which the Social Welfare Office has shared with almost every other government department and private organization in Hong Kong has been an acute shortage of accommodation. At the beginning, early in 1948, the Social Welfare Office was split between one room in the Fire Brigade Building, another small room in the Medical Department, and five decrepit matsheds and a ruined church which were used as free feeding centres. It also had local sub-offices for running Morrison Hill Camp and Matauchung Relief Camp-which had been taken over from the Medical Department. By 1952 the position had altered considerably, but accommodation was still quite inadequate, the Social Welfare Office Headquarters, the General Office, Relief, Youth Welfare, Moral Welfare, and Children's Sections sharing the first floor of the Fire Brigade Building with the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, whilst the Probation Section worked from the Central Magistracy. An- other office at Happy Valley housed the Screening Section, part of the Relief Section, and two Social Welfare Offices Boys' and Girls' Clubs. The six welfare centres, which had developed from the original free feeding centres, also all gave hospitality to Social Welfare Office Boys' and Girls' Clubs, and to Kaifong and other voluntary organizations.
g.
CHAPTER III
TRAINING OF SOCIAL WORKERS
In 1946 six potential social workers were sent to England to take Social Science Diploma or Certificate courses. Experience showed that such courses were of benefit only to those local students who had taken up welfare work as a pro-
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