responsibilities in connexion with the day-to-day enforcemen of this Ordinance to the Social Welfare Officer.
33. Many people are still apt to think of the Children's Officers as being chiefly concerned with prosecutions for ill- treatment or for being in possession of an unregistered ward, with police courts, and with punishments, and in fact this does represent a fairly accurate description of the duties of the old pre-war muitsai inspectorate. But now, although the work of "punishing" people still has its place on occasions, the section's duties, are, for the most part, to watch over the care of deprived children of all kinds. For deprivation is by no means restricted to physical deprivation alone. Children's Officers must keep in close and friendly contact with all institutions in the Colony which are specially connected with Child Welfare. Of these there are at present 45, made up of five babies' homes, thirteen nurseries, eight infant welfare centres, and eighteen children's homes or orphanages, with a total of around 3,000 children under care.
Apart from those receiving institutional and residential care, the number of children in need of care and protection in families scattered all over Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, and who are the Child Welfare Section's responsibility, totalled 6,843, at the end of March 1957.
34. Indeed the officers of the Child Welfare Section must be intelligent and highly educated women, skilled in the art of developing friendly and informal relations with children and children's guardians, who know how to win their co-operation in order that the children will have the opportunity of growing into tomorrow's good citizens.
35. Children's Officers must make it their business to famil- iarize themselves with the religious, educational, social and health services of the Colony, and to improve their knowledge of the law and of its administration insofar as these affect the children of Hong Kong. Days are fully occupied in home visiting, in making investigations into alleged cases of exploita- tion of children, and in assisting voluntary organizations and orphanages in whatever way they can to raise their standards, which at present leave much to be desired, particularly on the emotional and psychological level. During the year Children's Officers carried out 3,818 visits, which included such routine
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