ENG-2015 — Page 211

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Social Welfare

prisoners rehabilitate and reintegrate into the community during the year. The SWD funds an NGO to offer hostel and supportive services to former offenders.

Medical Social Services

Medical social workers are stationed in public hospitals and some specialist clinics to assist patients and/or their families with welfare needs, helping them recover and reintegrate into society. SWD medical social workers dealt with about 184,350 cases in 2015.

Clinical Psychological Services

In 2015, 74 clinical psychologists in the SWD and NGOs provided 2,549 psychological assessments and 16,613 treatment sessions for 3,690 cases presenting psychological or psychiatric disorders.

Social Welfare Financial Assistance

Low-income Working Family Allowance

In January 2015, the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council approved funding to take forward a Low-income Working Family Allowance Scheme. The scheme aims to relieve the financial burden of low-income working families, especially those with children, to encourage self-reliance and to ease inter-generational poverty. Following the funding approval, the Student Financial Assistance Agency was renamed with effect from 1 March 2015 the Working Family Allowance Office of the Working Family and Student Financial Assistance Agency, under which a Working Family Allowance Office was formed to implement the scheme. The office will start receiving applications in phases from May 2016.

Social Security

The Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) and Social Security Allowance (SSA) schemes form the mainstay of Hong Kong's social security system, 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. These schemes are administered by 41 Social Security Field Units and two centralised offices.

Comprehensive Social Security Assistance

The non-contributory CSSA scheme is means-tested and applicants must satisfy a residence requirement. It provides cash assistance to people suffering from financial hardship to enable them to meet basic needs. At the year end, there were 244,095 CSSA cases involving 364,846 beneficiaries. The scheme's total expenditure was $22.4 billion in 2015, an increase of 8.8 per cent over the previous year.

The Portable CSSA scheme allows elderly people who have received CSSA continuously for at least one year to continue receiving assistance in Guangdong or Fujian province if they choose to retire there.

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