Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1962-1963 — Page 9

6. In general accord with its functions, the Department is divided among six sections each headed by a Principal Social Welfare Officer, a professional officer with long experience and often specialized training in his or her particular field. Each Principal Officer has responsibility on administrative matters to an Assistant Director who is a member of the administrative service and on professional matters to an Assistant Director who is a professional social worker. A Training Unit was established during the year under a Principal Training Officer, for the in-service training of staff serving in voluntary agencies and in the Department; this Unit is financed largely by UNICEF for a period of two years. A brief account of the functions of each section follows, a more detailed account being given in the relevant chapter of the Report: (i) The Probation Section is responsible for the supervision of offenders whom the courts have placed under a Probation Order; for the training of boys committed to the Castle Peak Approved School; and of those remanded or committed to the Remand Home in Kowloon; for making social investigations into the background of offenders at the request of the Courts; and for liaison with voluntary agencies working with delinquent boys and ex-prisoners, or in the connected preventive field. (ii) The Child Welfare Section is responsible for the administration of the provisions of the Women and Juveniles Ordinance, 1951 in registration of Chinese customary adoption, assumption of legal guardianship of young children in need of care and protec- tion or of girls lacking parental guidance; adoption of children in Hong Kong under the Adoption Ordinance, 1956; procedures in Hong Kong for the adoption of children abroad and place- ment in temporary foster care; care of children found aban- doned, or ill-treated; liaison with voluntary agencies operating children's institutions, day care nurseries, play centres and sponsorship programmes for the support from overseas of children in needy families.

(iii) The Women and Girls Section is responsible for caring for unmarried mothers and girls in moral danger or in need of care and protection and for young prostitutes; and for liaison with institutions working in this field.

(iv) The Relief Section provides a measure of public assistance in seeking to rehabilitate destitutes whenever possible; and in providing cooked food or dry rations for persons in need; and registers and feeds victims of natural disasters.

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