ENG-1965 — Page 184

SOCIAL WELFARE

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by the Lutheran World Service in the summer and admits a small number of disabled persons among its trainees. A small experimental settlement for paraplegics was set up at Kwun Tong resettlement estate in September, designed to meet the housing and vocational needs of some of these severely disabled people. The departmental rehabilitation centre at Aberdeen gave shelter and varied practical training to over 300 disabled of all classes. The total number of disabled persons registered with the Social Welfare Department increased from 12,200 to 13,355 during the year. The most striking increase was a rise of almost 20 per cent in the number of mental defectives, who now account for one-tenth of the total.

The Hong Kong Society for the Blind employs 135 workers in machine operation and other occupations at its factory. It also manages the Rotary Centre for the Blind, opened in June, which trains educated blind people in telephone switchboard operation and dictaphone typing. Two day centres care for mentally retarded children and about 60 reside at Aberdeen.

Voluntary homes have places for only some 2,000 old people and more accommodation is needed as the aged tend to fall increasingly out of family care. The government encourages expansion through grants of land on special terms and financial support for organi- zations willing to establish new homes on a sound footing.

PROBATION AND CORRECTION

Probation officers are responsible for supervising offenders on probation as well as for making social inquiries on behalf of the courts. At the end of the year there were 1,524 individuals on pro- bation, compared with 1,293 at the end of 1964.

The existing juvenile correctional institutions consist of a com- bined remand and probation home for 160 boys and a similar home for 50 girls-both in Kowloon—and a reformatory (or ‘approved') school for 150 boys at Castle Peak in the New Territories. A pro- bation hostel, which is a new institution where the courts can order probationers to reside while at work, is now being built in an in- dustrial area, and a second reformatory school is being built on the outskirts of Kowloon.

Valuable voluntary services are offered on the preventive and positive side by the Juvenile Care Centre and the Society of Boys'