ENG-1990 — Page 222

SOCIAL WELFARE

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These services help students with personal behavioural or family-related problems in adjusting to school life. A comprehensive review of the service conducted during the year has indicated the direction for future development.

Uniformed organisations offer young people opportunities for joining organised activities and training programmes to help them develop character and leadership so that they can eventually become responsible, self-reliant and caring members of the community. There are eight subvented welfare organisations, with over 86 000 members operating a wide range of activities with different emphasis for different target groups of young people. The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme offers a comprehensive programme focusing on the development of the potential of young people, and this has attracted a membership of 40 000.

Rehabilitation of the Disabled

The objective of rehabilitation services in Hong Kong is to integrate the disabled into the community. Services provided by government departments and welfare agencies are aimed at enabling disabled people to fully develop their physical, mental and social capabilities. These services are co-ordinated by the Commissioner for Rehabilitation, who also conducts regular reviews of the Rehabilitation Programme Plan, which projects the requirements for and identifies the shortfalls in rehabilitation services for the following 10 years.

The Department of Health is responsible for preventing disabilities by promoting health education and improving immunisation programmes against various communicable diseases, and providing screening services for early identification of disabilities. The Hospital Services Department is responsible for providing medical rehabilitation services. The Social Welfare Department is responsible for the planning and development of a wide range of social rehabilitation needs, either through direct service provision or subvention to welfare agencies. The Education Department is responsible for all aspects of the education and training of disabled children of school age and for boarding care and transport services in special schools. The Technical Education and Industrial Training Department is responsible for co-ordinating vocational training for disabled young people and adults. The Labour Department is responsible for job placements for the hearing impaired, the visually impaired, the physically handicapped, the mentally handicapped and for discharged mental patients. The Transport Department subvents a Rehabus service for disabled persons who cannot use public transport.

By the end of the year, the Social Welfare Department and subvented welfare agencies provided a total of 592 integrated programme places, 855 special child care centre places (including 54 residential places) and 785 early education and training centre places for pre- school disabled children. For disabled adults, there were 1 298 day activity centre places to provide day care, daily living skills and work training for the mentally handicapped, 3 303 sheltered workshop places to provide employment for disabled persons who are unable to compete in the open job market, and 2012 hostel places for those disabled persons who can neither live independently nor be adequately cared for by their families, or who live in areas too remote from their places of training or employment. In addition, 200 long stay care home places, 757 halfway house places and 110 activity centre places were provided for discharged mental patients and 21 social and recreational centres were provided for all categories of disabled persons.