these topics receive some mention in chapters following. Family planning was another common talking point during the year; this is a question of great interest and concern to social workers, on which fresh developments may be expected soon. Another fashionable word was 'rehabilitation'. The concept that this is a single process ('from ambulance back to the job') in which medical, surgical and social readjustment, educational and vocational retraining and employment-placement processes are all merely phases, rather than distinct professional compartments, is taking hold in many quarters. The reasons why people seek, or are referred for, the help of the Department's caseworkers in rehabilitating themselves-using the word in a wide sense-vary from physical or mental handicap to delinquency and moral or psychological difficulties. To work with people towards their own social rehabilitation is indeed the principal business and function of the caseworker.
6. Hong Kong was strongly represented at the International Con- ference of Social Work in Athens in September 1964, where its delegates were honoured by being invited to play an active part quite out of propor- tion to this Crown Colony's normally accepted importance in the general scale of international things. There can be no doubt that whatever internal beliefs may be held, Hong Kong is regarded by the knowledgeable as among the leaders in the Far East in its attitude of responsibility to, and its achievement and purposes in, buman welfare.
7. Among important departmental matters there has been some severely practical rethinking and evaluation of the community organiza- tion work done, in particular of the community centres. More will not be said specifically in this introduction since some prominence was given to the subject of community development very recently in Chapter 10 of the Colony's Annual Report, Hong Kong 1964.* More mundane but of great immediate impact was a revision of welfare salary scales and titles which became effective on 1 December; the most important change was that salaries offered, particularly for the various levels of University qualification, became for the first time comparable with those in other professional departments. The details are set out in Appendix 2 and it has already become evident from the number and quality of those applying for appointment to vacancies that the old rates were, as suspected, an unduly grave handicap to recruitment in competition with other careers.
* Limited quantities of a reprint of this Chapter (in English and Chinese) are
available on request to the Secretary, Social Welfare Department.
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