Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1966-1967 — Page 54

secondary school education and for graduates without professional training. The training of institutional staff began in the year, with two groups totalling twenty-nine house parents and welfare supervisors receiving training. Altogether thirty-nine different voluntary agencies and three government departments participated in the training pro- grammes. Training officers also conducted 'refresher' study groups for seventeen nursery supervisors and for twenty-two nursery workers, who had their original training two or more years ago. The unit also ran staff development programmes for the department itself, including three orientation courses for sixty-five new workers and co-operative planning and teaching was extended to other voluntary agencies. In summary, one hundred and forty-one workers attended basic courses, ninety- eight attended refresher courses and one hundred and twenty-five attended various other courses, including staff orientation.

99. The Social Work Training Fund received no further capital contribution during the year but still succeeds in meeting all its immediate commitments from income, the capital remaining intact at $3,488,933. The grants during the year were used mainly to continue the support of the academic courses at the two universities and the in-service training courses sponsored by the department, and to assist social workers from voluntary agencies and Government in obtaining professional training at universities in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States of America. The Fund also financed the attendance of two delegates from the Hong Kong Council of Social Service at the 13th International Conference of Social Work in Washington, DC, USA and provided an allocation to the Hong Kong Social Workers Association for publishing the Hong Kong Journal of Social Work. Disbursements from the Fund amounted to $413,468.39 as against $285,906.61 in the previous year. The functions and membership of the Fund's committee are set out at Appendix 2; more detailed informa- tion is contained in a separate report by the Trustee of the Fund.

100.

The government continued to provide bursaries for students at the University of Hong Kong, both for the diploma and the certificate courses, as well as for students taking a university arts degree with firm intention of proceeding afterwards to the diploma course. Bursaries were also provided to students of the Chinese University taking social work courses at the Chung Chi and United Colleges. The total value of bursaries awarded during 1966-67 was $112,110 held by eight diploma

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