placed under the guardianship of the Director of Social Welfare, in accordance with the provisions of the Protection of Women and Juvenile Ordinance, Cap 213, and each adoption is registered. The number of these registered adoptions decreased from 28 in 1968-69 to 12 during the year under review. The registration of male children is not required by law but under the system of voluntary registration there has been a decrease from 41 to 15.
60. Residential care for girls with personal or family problems is provided by three voluntary welfare organizations. The local branch of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd runs the Pelletier Hall which provides residential care, education, domestic and voca- tional training for about 120 teenage girls between the ages of 14 and 18 who have experienced behaviour problems. A second home, the Mary Stanton Centre (Marycove), provides a similar service for 250 girls some of whom live at home and attend at the centre for training. The Po Leung Kuk has a similar programme of training and residential care for about 80 girls in this category. All three institutions help girls with personal or family problems to re-establish a satisfactory relationship with their families and to readjust themselves to normal life in the community.
PUBLIC ASSISTANCE AND EMERGENCY RELIEF
61. Public Assistance aims at relieving distress and hardship amongst individuals and families as part of a process of helping them to re-establish their independence. Public assistance is available to any person who applies and qualifies for aid, the criteria of eligibility being based on an assessment of the applicant's income or that of his family, if any. This programme is the immediate responsibility of the Principal Social Welfare Officer (Public Assistance).
62. Aid under public assistance is at present given mainly in the form of food. Cooked meals ceased to be issued with effect from January 1969. The majority of persons on relief receive weekly or fortnightly issues of dry rations, each allocation containing fixed quantities of rice, tinned meat, vegetables, tea leaves and sugar. Small cash grants are payable once a month in lieu of dry rations to certain categories of persons for whom aid in the form of food is unsuitable.
63. Applications for public assistance are dealt with by the Division's casewokers who interview their clients in the various District Offices and Family Services Centres already described, with a view to
18