ENG-1962 — Page 234

11

Social Welfare

ATTENTION has been drawn in previous years to a growing aware- ness of the need for properly qualified staff in the field of social welfare. It has long been recognized that the building and main- tenance of institutions and vocational training and community centres, and the financing of casework services and relief measures, can be justified only if sufficient qualified staff can be provided to ensure that they are used constructively and to full advantage. The inevitable conclusion was that a comprehensive programme for training social workers was required and it is gratifying to be able to report that during the year this programme began.

The appointment of three consultants to advise and assist in the development of a training programme was recommended by Dr Eileen Younghusband in her 1960 Report on Social Work Training in Hong Kong. By January 1962, the first had arrived, and by May, the remaining two. Hong Kong was fortunate in securing from North America Professor A. F. Klein (Professor of Social Group Work at the University of Pittsburgh), Mrs J. D. Chaisson (formerly Assistant Professor of Social Work at the University of Toronto and recently a consultant with various welfare agencies in Canada) and Miss M. Moscrop (from Canada, recently con- sultant on in-service training in Malaya). Their assignments were sponsored respectively by the United States Government, the Asia Foundation and the Canadian Technical Assistance Programme, whose generosity is gratefully acknowledged.

Miss Moscrop was able to embark immediately upon an assess- ment of in-service training needs and the formulation of plans to meet them. Using a grant from UNICEF, a social work training unit consisting of a principal training officer and two training officers was established under her professional supervision. By the autumn this unit was providing a variety of in-service training courses for 152 social or welfare workers from voluntary agencies and Government departments. Professor Klein and Mrs Chaisson