Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1964-1965 — Page 42

mentioned, receive an annual Government subvention. Certain agencies provide accommodation for varying periods for children who are found by the Department to need care and protection; the largest number, two hundred and twenty-six children, entered the Po Leung Kuk, a long-established Chinese institution the Superintendent of which con- tinues to be an officer seconded from the Department at the request of its Committee (see Appendix 18); the Kuk has agreed to provide very welcome extra accommodation for handicapped children (see Appendix 11 Sections D and E) and has started to run day nurseries, St Christopher's Home at Tai Po and the Children's Garden at Wu Kwai Sha also admitted a number of children referred by the Department. Particulars of institu- tions providing residential and day care are in Appendix 19. Of two thousand six hundred babies and children in residential care, only a hundred and nineteen were available and considered suitable for adoption at the year's end, while most of the rest still have parents or one parent and will return home when their need for care ceases, so that there is little question of their being adopted. There are some other children in Homes who are unlikely to be adopted on account of mental or physical handicap or for other reasons.

72. Since the Children's Reception Centre opened its doors in January 1964, good progress has been made in various aspects of its work. Children who were found abandoned or lost were made wards of the Director of Social Welfare by Order of Court, if their parents could not be traced. During the year, a total of one hundred and ninety-eight children were admitted, of whom eighty-two have already been returned to their parents or relatives; eight were adopted by families in Hong Kong; forty-seven have been transferred to other children's homes either for long-term care or pending adoption overseas; and ten died. Specialists from the Medical Department visited the Centre periodically to examine and assess those children who are either physically handicapped or suspected to be mentally defective. The ceremonial opening of the Centre was performed on 25 June by the American Consul General, the Hon Edward E. RICE, on behalf of his Government which had presented the building and equip- ment as a contribution towards World Refugee Year.

73. Most of the workers in the Child Welfare Section are women, but there is a place here for some male social workers too. Children are the readiest to smile in a community that is by nature free with laughter and reluctant to surrender to the depressing aspects of modern life; and the work of this part of the Department can bring great satisfaction to many of those who serve in it.

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