Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1967-1968 — Page 28

its atmosphere include its flourishing scout troop and wolf cub pack and its energetic participation in the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme.

56. Under the present law a boy is committed for a maximum period of five years' training, or until he is 18, whichever comes the sooner. A recent amendment of the Industrial and Reformatory Schools Ordinance allows the Director of Social Welfare to discharge a boy on licence after a minium of one year's stay at the home. The average residence of two and half years will gradually be reduced to one and half years in view of the new lower limit of stay. Aftercare service is an integral part of the total rehabilitation process and failure to provide for transition from the confinement of an institution to the open life of community living through skilful aftercare, may undo whatever good work the Home has put in. Supervision after discharge is the responsibil- ity of two designated area officers from the Probation Service, one on the Island and one in Kowloon, who therefore actually work in the areas where the boys have their homes. They are the aftercare agents of the home's superintendent, and they keep in close touch with him. There is a caseworker in the home who propares an individual aftercare plan for each lad; he also studies and counsels boys with special be- haviour problems. During the year there were forty-one admissions to and thirty-nine discharges from the Castle Peak Boys' Home and twenty-eight boys were discharged on licence. The approval of a new and more adequate manning scale for the Home will go a long way to easing the serious staffing difficulties which have been experienced for many years and will give the boys who are committed to the Home a better chance of benefiting from their committal.

57. The multi-purpose institution called the Begonia Road Boys' Home at Yau Yat Chuen is extensively used and is frequently full to its capacity of a hundred and sixty. Not only does it take in boys who have been arrested or remanded, or have been committed for a maximum of six months' residential training under the Juvenile Offenders Ordinance, but it serves as a Home for boys on probation whom the court may order to reside at a stated place, usually because their own home con- ditions are so unsatisfactory that supervision alone might not succeed. This means that on the remand side there has to be security without a prison-house atmosphere, whereas on the probation side a semi- disciplined programme of social adjustment is followed in conditions which are made as 'open' as possible. The balance of emphasis requires

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