ENG-1997 — Page 236

SOCIAL WELFARE

176

At the district level, 16 youth offices of the department co-ordinate and strengthen existing youth groups and community organisations, promote new groups and help them develop programmes to meet community needs.

At the year's end, non-governmental organisations ran 207 children and youth centres providing a variety of programmes and activities for young people's personal and social development. To meet new operational requirements and young people's changing needs, a Task Group on Modernisation of Children and Youth Centres was set up. It recommended improvements to the fitting out standard and the provision of furniture and equipment to make the centres more attractive.

Social workers are provided for all secondary schools to identify and help students whose academic, social and emotional development is at risk. Fourteen additional school social workers were provided in 1997. At the end of the year, 286 school social workers served a student population of 449 127 at an overall manning ratio of 1:1 570. At the same time, the manning ratio for 132 secondary schools with a more serious student problem was lowered to 1:1 000.

The outreaching social work service provides counselling and guidance to young people who do not normally participate in conventional social or youth activities and who are vulnerable to undesirable influences. In December 1997, there were 33 teams serving priority areas which had a high juvenile crime rate and a high youth population.

A Community Support Service Scheme, comprising two projects operated by non- governmental organisations and one project by the SWD, was introduced in 1994–95 on an experimental basis to provide structured programmes and supervised activities for children and youths who have broken the law or are at risk. At the end of the year, the two NGO projects served a total of 1 682 cases and the SWD project a total of 954.

In August 1995, the SWD began to subvent a youth hotline operated by an NGO to help young people at risk by offering timely intervention through counselling. The hotline workers handled a total of 29 543 calls in 1997.

The Against Substance Abuse Scheme provides secondary prevention to experimental or occasional substance abusers under the age of 21, with the ultimate goal of helping them develop healthy lifestyles. Services cover counselling groups, supportive activities, drug awareness programmes and drug education talks. By year's end, 1 139 young people had benefited from the scheme.

On the recommendation of the Working Group on Services for Youth at Risk (Working Group), a pilot project was introduced in 1997 to help identify young students with special developmental needs by way of a screening tool. Appropriate preventive programmes will be arranged for these students. A three-year evaluation study is being conducted in parallel to test the administrative process and evaluate the effectiveness of the preventive programmes.

To identify and provide assistance for young night-drifters, two youth mobile teams, as recommended by the Working Group, were set up in October 1997 for two years on a pilot basis. The teams aim to provide on-the-spot crisis intervention, short- term follow-up services and to help young night-drifters to participate in mainstream youth services.