qualifications. These requirements are expected to be fully complied with by June 1979 but the Director of Social Welfare will be prepared to exercise his discretion in individual cases where strict adherence would create hardship.
2.10
The Adoption Service of the Social Welfare Department administers the local adoption of orphans or children whose parents are unable or unwilling to maintain them. Overseas adoptions are mainly dealt with by Caritas and the International Social Service. The number of adoptions has decreased in recent years due to fewer babies and children becoming available for adoption. The proportion of overseas adoptions has fallen particularly sharply and was only 4% of total adoption orders in 1977 compared with 50% in 1965.
Services for the Elderly
2.11
Services specifically for old people have grown sporadically on an ad hoc basis and are almost all provided by the voluntary sector. These include hostel accommodation for the elderly, social clubs and centres and residential institutional facilities. In late 1976 the Government undertook a systematic study of the problems of the elderly to identify their needs and recommend appropriate services. A ten year programme of development was prepared and then published as a Green Paper on Services for the Elderly in late 1977. Subject to the modifications expressed elsewhere in this White Paper, this programme plan has been adopted.
Probation and Correctional Services
2.12
The Social Welfare Department's services for offenders include three main elements: probation service, residential training in correctional institutions and after-care services. The department operates a total of five correctional institutions which are complemented by residential training homes run by voluntary agencies.
2.13
A volunteer, scheme for probationers was introduced on an experimental basis in October 1976. Selected volunteers, after undergoing suitable orientation, provide personal and moral support to probationers in matters which do not require professional skills. Probation officers, however, retain overall responsibility for enforcing the conditions of probation orders.
2.14
Probationers normally report to their probation officers at the latters' offices in magistracy buildings. Some of the probationers may not live in the immediate vicinity of these buildings. To facilitate counselling of probationers and to provide a stigma-free environment which should assist in improving the response to treatment, an experimental reporting centre was established in 1976 in Yuen Long. On the basis of this successful experiment, a further reporting centre will be established in Sha Tin in 1979/80. The Department's new regional and district social welfare offices will also facilitate contact between probation officers and probationers.
Support Services
2.15
The Lady Trench Training Centre now operates five training programmes in different areas of activities, both for the benefit of departmental staff and staff of the voluntary agencies. Several voluntary agencies also run short in-service training programmes for their staff. The five- week course on training for child care workers was extended in 1975 following the enactment of the Child Care Centres Ordinance so that workers from both private and subvented centres could attend the course. The Centre also operates a demonstration nursery for some 100 children to provide a practical model for those workers under training.
2.16
The Institute of Social Work Training which provides a two year pre-service training course for front line social workers, previously run by the Social Welfare Department, was integrated into the Hong Kong Polytechnic in 1977, and is now known as the School of Social
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