ENG-2008 — Page 247

Social Welfare | 191

Family Services

The SWD adopts a three-pronged approach to providing services to families in need.

At the primary level, attempts are made through early detection, public education, publicity and empowerment to prevent family problems from occurring. The SWD continued with its territory-wide publicity campaign entitled 'Strengthening Families and Combating Violence' during the year, and continued to operate a departmental hotline to provide service information, counselling and other forms of assistance.

At the secondary level, a range of support services, from developmental programmes to intensive counselling, is provided by 61 Integrated Family Service Centres across Hong Kong and two Integrated Services Centres located in Tung Chung.

At the tertiary level, specialised services, including crisis intervention, are provided in cases of domestic violence, family crisis or custody dispute.

Services for Children

The SWD provides a wide range of welfare services to children and young people who need care or protection due to serious family problems or behavioural or emotional problems. There were 3 504 residential places in 2008 for these children, of which 950 were in foster homes, 887 in small group homes, 207 in child care centres and 1 460 in boys' and girls' homes and hostels.

The SWD also arranges adoptions for children abandoned by their parents or whose parents are unable to support them. Three welfare NGOs are 'accredited bodies' in accordance with the Adoption Ordinance for making arrangements for inter-country adoption of Hong Kong children by suitable overseas parents. The SWD started to invite applications from NGOs to be registered as 'accredited bodies' in local adoption arrangements in August.

There were 12 aided stand-alone child care centres capable of accommodating up to 682 children in 2008. Child care centres and kindergarten-cum-child care centres continued to provide full day care services and additional support for families. through the provision of 497 occasional child care places and 1 244 extended-hour places. In 2008, the SWD increased day foster care places to 50 and continued to provide 15 day small group home places.

Social Security

The CSSA Scheme and the Social Security Allowance (SSA) Scheme form the mainstay of Hong Kong's social security system. They are supplemented by three accident compensation schemes, the Criminal and Law Enforcement Injuries Compensation (CLEIC) Scheme, the Traffic Accident Victims Assistance (TAVA) Scheme, and Emergency Relief. There are 37 Social Security Field Units and two centralised offices administering these schemes across Hong Kong.