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SOCIAL WELFARE

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the department as well as those working in voluntary welfare organisations. These include in-service courses for the training of workers without sufficient academic qualifications, refresher courses and field-work studies for university students.

There has been widespread interest by the Government and voluntary social welfare agencies in a full time training programme for youth workers to be established in Hong Kong. Dr Irving Spergel, UN adviser on youth work who arrived in September, has been assisting in planning the curricula and in developing youth work training facilities in consultation with staff of the Training Section and others in the field.

The Lady Trench Day Nursery and Training Centre was opened in July by Lady Trench. The centre serves as a training centre for workers in the welfare field and houses the Training Section of the Department. The nursery provides day care for up to 100 children aged two to five from a cross section of families and enables super- vised field-work training to be given to trainees of the nursery work

courses.

Funds for social work training through scholarships and bursaries are provided by the Social Work Training Fund, which is con- trolled by a statutory committee of which the Director of Social Welfare is ex officio Chairman, by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and by the Government. Grants amounting to $376,000 were made from these sources during the year to enable 90 students to receive social work training at both universities and 11 social workers to receive further training both locally and abroad. Grants have also been made to the Chinese University for the estab- lishment of courses, and small grants have been made to various agencies to finance their staff development programmes. The fund also assisted in sending a delegation of about 90 local social workers, social welfare administrators and social work educators to attend the 15th International Conference on Social Welfare and the 15th International Congress of Schools of Social Work in Manila in August and September.