England, which included the advanced Home Office Child Care Course. At the same time three Assistant Children's Officers were released from their duties for two years in order to take their Social Science Diplomas or Certificates at Hong Kong University.
22. These study courses, and the transfer in 1952 of yet another experienced officer to the new Moral Welfare Section, reduced the total field staff to three, with no prospect of any immediate increase. Meanwhile the section was still respon- sible for the welfare of over a thousand children registered as the statutory wards of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, or otherwise in need of care and protection, and living in homes scattered throughout the Colony. All three officers continued the tradition of good work, visiting in all weathers, keeping careful watch on and records of the welfare and development of the children for whom they were responsible, investigating cases of alleged cruelty, sale or exploitation, and showing a markedly improved ability to meet (and usually solve) the varied problems which came their way.
23. Throughout this transition period the organization of the Women and Children's Section was of necessity somewhat makeshift, since the staff was undertaking two very different kinds of specialized work. On the one hand were their increased responsibilities as Children's Officers--whose duty it was to win the co-operation of a child's parents or guardians. On the other hand they still had the old Muitsai Inspectorate's legacy of semi-police work, too often associated in the public mind with arrests and punishments. In addition, they had certain statutory duties for the inspection of emigrant women and children, which had been delegated to the Social Welfare Office by the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs. Finally, this same section undertook all the day-to-day work in connection with the Po Leung Kuk and its Committee-work which had formerly been carried out by the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, but had likewise been delegated to the Social Welfare Office.
In Appendices 3 to 7 are statistical summaries of the Section's work.
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