TNAG-0608-FCO40-756-Planning-paper-on-progress-made-on-social-security-in-Hong-K-1977 — Page 34

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FOREWORD

In July 1976, a Programme Plan for Rehabilitation Services was prepared by an inter- departmental Working Group. The Plan covers the ten-year period from 1975 and was prepared in consultation with Government departments providing rehabilitation services and with the Joint Council for the Physically and Mentally Disabled of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service. The services recommended in the Plan were intended to cater for the needs of the deaf (and partially hearing), the blind (and the partially sighted), the mentally ill, the mentally retarded, slow learning and maladjusted children, the physically disabled and those with multiple disabilities.

2.

A summary of the main findings and recommendations contained in the Plan was tabled in the Legislative Council on 13th October, 1976 as a Green Paper entitled "The Further Development of Rehabilitation Services in Hong Kong".

3.

Comments on the Green Paper were received from many individuals and from interested organisations. Reports of comments on the Green Paper made at two seminars organised by the Hong Kong Council of Social Service were presented to the Government. A number of suggestions and ideas about the further development of rehabilitation services in Hong Kong were put forward. These comments and suggestions have been considered and the possibility of reducing the shortfalls of services identified in the Green Paper in a shorter period of time than proposed has been examined.

4.

This White Paper sets out the Government proposals for the further development of rehabilitation services up to 1985-86. It is Government's intention to implement the proposals as quickly as possible. The objectives and targets listed in this paper, the progress of implementation, and the adoption of other proposals put forward by the public in their comments on the Green Paper, will be reviewed annually. The first such review will begin in 1978.

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