voluntary organizations and recommended allocations totalling over $5,600,000 for 1964-65. It also considered seventeen applications for permission to hold flag days and advised the Government on a number of questions of social welfare policy.
83. The Hong Kong Social Workers' Association had another active and productive year, which included a number of week-end conferences on case work and supervision conducted by Mrs. CHAISSON, the Con- sultant on Field Work Training (see paragraph 85 below). A number of talks were also given on subjects of interest to social workers. The Association continued its efforts to interpret and popularize social work as a career by organizing a series of career talks to Form V students in thirty secondary schools. The Association recognizes that it has an im- portant role to play in helping to raise standards of social work practice and proposes to intensify its efforts in this direction during the coming year.
84. Perhaps the most encouraging evidence of the willingness and ability of the Government and the voluntary agencies to work closely together in the interest of effective service is still the response of the latter to the social work training programme which is reported in the following chapter. Their willingness to provide facilities for the field work training of social work students and to take a full part in the In-Service Training Programme, not only at the planning stage but also throughout the courses themselves, has been a very real demonstration of concerted effort. Quite apart from the direct results, in the form of better trained staff, the increasingly trusting and friendly relationship between voluntary agencies and the Department as organizations, and between their many individual members of staff, has been of great mutual benefit. The Depart- ment sees its role as that of a partner with the voluntary agencies. Each has important tasks to perform, tasks which will be carried out more effectively in a climate of mutual understanding and goodwill, as the spirit of service to people in need spreads wider afield.
CHAPTER X
TRAINING
85. The nature of social welfare services in Hong Kong has now been described at some length. Where do the workers come from? Although it comes last, in many ways the subject matter of this chapter is the most
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