ENG-2005 — Page 243

Social Welfare | 201

At the tertiary level, specialised services and crisis intervention are provided by a number of service units. In April, through re-deployment and the addition of resources, the department set up an additional Family and Child Protective Unit in Yuen Long to strengthen its service to the victims of child abuse and spouse battering and their families. This brings the number of such units and the specialised teams up to six. It also employed eight additional clinical psychologists on a contract basis to enhance the professional support for the family services and turned the 24-hour Suicide Crisis Intervention Centre operated by the Samaritan Befrienders Hong Kong into a regular service.

Additional resources were allocated to the Family Crisis Support Centre to enhance its hotline service at night and also to the four Refuge Centres for Women, which provide 162 short-term residential places for women-in-need, to strengthen their social work support after office hours and other support services. Two four-year pilot projects on the Prevention and Handling of Elder Abuse were completed at end of March 2005.

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 support them. Residential child care services are provided for children and young people who need care or protection because of family crises or their behavioural or emotional problems. Through the allocation of new resources and re-engineering of residential child care services in 2005, the overall provision of residential child care services increased from 3 305 in 2004-05 to 3 400 at end of 2005 905 places in the foster care service, 888 places in small group homes, 231 places in residential créches/nurseries and 1 376 places in children's homes, boys' and girls' homes and hostels.

Amendments to the principal legislation in the Adoption Ordinance were completed in July 2004 both to bring it into line with the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and to improve local adoption arrangements. Further legislative amendments to the subsidiary legislation were gazetted on December 16, 2005, and tabled at the Legislative Council on December 21.

The Child Care Services (Amendment) Bill was passed in the Legislative Council in June 2005 to harmonise pre-primary services. From September 1, child care centres were redefined as day care services for children under the age of three. Day nurseries for children aged from two to six or from birth to six became kindergarten-cum-child care centres and were placed under the administration of the Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB). A Joint Office for Pre-primary Services staffed by both the SWD and EMB was set up under the EMB to provide one-stop services to kindergarten-cum-child care centres. The Kindergarten Fee Remission Scheme was also extended to cover children attending child care centres and renamed the Kindergarten and Child Care Centre Fee Remission Scheme. Low-income families meeting the social need and means-test criteria can receive fee remission in part or full for child care.