the Youth Welfare Section
(including youth activities, community centres and com-
munity organization); and
the Training Unit
(in-service training and professional staff development)
10. A Regional Office was established in the densely packed Western District in the early part of 1965 to draw together casework services previously provided separately by the Child Welfare, Relief, Special Welfare and Women and Girls Section, in such a way as to facilitate a more comprehensive approach to the casework needs of clients and their families. This was the first such office, and it was also the first move towards a major reorganization within the Department which is intended to provide for a network of such regional offices providing a comprehensive casework service and forming a part of a new Family Welfare Service staffed at field level largely by general workers each capable of helping clients to solve their overall problems, but able to rely for specialist advice upon a number of experts centrally located in the service. This pilot project was successful and was followed by the establishment of a second Regional Office for the Eastern part of the Island, when the departmental headquarters moved to its present address in September, 1966. The second Regional Office brought the integration of the previously distinct services a stage further and a third Regional Office which is expected to be opened in Kowloon in August 1967 is being planned on the basis of total integration of the Family Welfare Service. The philosophy behind the establishment of Regional Offices and the proposed creation of a Family Welfare Service springs from the recognition of the complexity of man and his problems and the fact that if we are to assist people to solve their problems the whole range of our facilities must be made available to the client at one point reason- ably close to his home. The transition from partial to full implementa- tion and introduction of these and other proposals await final approval, but are likely to be achieved within the first half of the coming financial year.
11. The Department is fully conscious of the inter-dependence of qualified staff, social research and welfare services and, in addition to providing direct services tries to offer leadership in the development of additional or more intensive training opportunities, and encourages fact-finding and evaluative research; it throws open its training resources to voluntary agencies and other Government departments (many of
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