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SOCIAL WELFARE

SARS' and the 'We Care Education Fund' initiated by the business sector and the civil service sector respectively, and to allocate grants to eligible individuals or families.

Social Welfare Programmes

Family and Child Welfare

The overall objective of the family and child welfare programme is to preserve and strengthen the family as a unit through assisting individuals and families to identify and deal with their problems, or to prevent problems from arising, and to provide for needs which cannot be met from within the family. A comprehensive network of family and child welfare services is provided by the department and NGOs.

Services for Families

The department adopts a three-pronged approach to provide a continuum of services to support families.

At the primary level, prevention of problems and crises is effected through publicity, education, empowerment and early identification. The publicity campaign on Strengthening Families and Combating Violence continues. Twenty Family Support and Resource Centres set up in community centres provide drop-in service, mutual support and early identification and referral of cases in need of intensive casework service. These services are supplemented by the department's 24-hour hotline service that provides information on social welfare services. A Family Helpline manned by social workers provides immediate telephone counselling for individuals and families facing a crisis.

At the secondary level, a range of support services, from developmental programmes to intensive counselling, is provided through a network of 66 Family Services Centres and Integrated Family Service Centres, staffed by 746 social workers who handled a total of 87 912 cases during the year. There are also five Single Parent Centres and eight Post-migration Centres.

At the tertiary level, specialised services and crisis intervention are provided through five Family and Child Protective Services Units, the Family Crisis Support Centre, the Suicide Crisis Intervention Centre and two projects on prevention and handling of elder abuse and another on elderly suicide. In addition, four Refuge Centres provide 162 short-term residential places for individuals in need, including battered spouses and their children; they accept admission on a 24-hour basis.

The problem of street-sleeping is tackled through a continuum of outreaching, counselling and referral services provided by the department's outreaching teams and family services centres, together with temporary shelters, urban hostels and day relief centres operated by NGOs. The 'Three-year Action Plan to Help Street Sleepers', targeting street sleepers who are younger and in good health, has assisted 529 street sleepers to live off the street since April 2001.

Services for Children

The department provides a wide range of child welfare services. The adoption service arranges permanent homes for children abandoned by their parents or whose parents are unable to maintain them. Residential child care services are provided for children and young people who need care or protection because of family crises or their

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