the Family Planning Association over more than ten years. It is now operating forty-eight clinics and much useful guidance has been given to over ninety thousand individuals during the past year. Social progress and economic advances are likely to be affected unless the population trends revealed by the census of 1961 are moderated. It is therefore very important that parents be urged by every suitable means to take a re- sponsible attitude towards the size of their families; no opportunity for spreading instruction and enlightenment ought to be neglected. This sub- ject received noticeable attention in the budget debates of the Legislative Council during March, and press comment following was mainly favourable.
60. The Child Welfare Section of the Department has continued to maintain close liaison with voluntary agencies, many of which receive an annual Government subvention. These agencies provide accommoda- tion for children who are found by the Department to need care and protection for varying periods; the largest number, over two hundred and seventy children, entered the Po Leung Kuk, an old-established Chinese institution the Superintendent of which continues to be an officer seconded from the Department at the request of its Committee (see Appendix 15); St. Christopher's Home at Tai Po and the Children's Garden at Wu Kwai Sha also admitted a considerable number of chil- dren. Particulars of institutions providing residential and day care are in Appendix 16. Of nearly two thousand seven hundred babies and children in residential care, over two thousand have parents or one parent and will return home when the need for care ceases, so that there is little question of their being adopted. A good many of the other chil- dren in Homes are for various reasons unlikely to be adopted.
61. At the end of January the Children's Reception Centre opened its doors at Chuk Yuen; the cost of construction being a generous dona- tion from the Government of the United States of America. This is the first institution of its kind to be established in Hong Kong. Children who are found apparently abandoned by their families are received by the child welfare staff of the Centre, who care for them and study and observe their physical, mental and psychological condition and needs, while every effort is made to trace the parents. If these efforts fail, applica- tion is made to Court for legal guardianship and the future of each child is carefully and individually planned. Thus for the first time the Director of Social Welfare is in practice assuming full direct control over many
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