Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1966-1967 — Page 37

forty-three have been transferred to other children's homes either for long-term care or pending adoption locally or oversea; and fifteen unhappily died. Specialists from the Medical and Health Department visited the Centre periodically to examine and assess those children who are either physically disabled or suspected to be mentally defective. In the nature of things, many of the waifs received into this centre are in a poor state of health, with discouraging prognoses.

54. A United Nation's consultant spent just under six months in Hong Kong at the invitation of the Government during the latter half of 1966 and undertook a survey of children's institutions. His report, formal adoption of which by the United Nations is still awaited, is known to make recommendations for future development and the es- tablishment and implementation of improved child care practices and standards in institutions. The department is concerned with the varying standards of child care in day-care and residential centres and institu- tions and has produced drafting instructions for new legislation which are being considered by other relevant departments.

55. Most of the workers in the Child Welfare Section are women, but there is a necessary place for 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. It is becoming as apparent here, however, as in other sections that it is a distortion to treat children's problems taken as a whole as something distinct from the family unit. There is, or in most cases there should be, a family to provide a background to each individual's difficulties and within which they may be solved.

CHAPTER VI

MORAL WELFARE

56. The aim of the Women and Girls' Section of the department is to rehabilitate girls in personal difficulties, or girls engaged in unde- sirable occupations, and to give care and advice to unmarried mothers, to girls who demonstrate anti-social behaviour or are in need of care and protection, and to those who have suffered sexual assault. Its officers are responsible for marriage counselling and make inquiries into proposed marriages between young members of visiting or garrison forces and local girls or into other intended marital unions when the

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