ENG-2016 — Page 221

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Social Welfare

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

Medical Social Services

Medical social workers are stationed in public hospitals and some specialist clinics to assist patients and their families with welfare needs, helping them recover and reintegrate into society. SWD medical social workers dealt with about 187,460 cases in 2016.

Clinical Psychological Services

In 2016, 55 clinical psychologists from the SWD and NGOs provided 3,450 psychological assessments and 29,976 treatment sessions for 2,528 service users with psychological problems.

Social Welfare Financial Assistance

Low-income Working Family Allowance

The Low-income Working Family Allowance Scheme, operated by the Working Family Allowance Office, 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. A family of two or more members that meets the income and asset limits and working hour requirements may apply for a Basic Allowance or a Higher Allowance. Each eligible child may also receive a Child Allowance. The scheme opened for applications in May and had approved more than 33,100 applications by the year end out of 52,100 received, granting allowances totalling $391 million to about 28,800 families and 104,100 individuals, including around 46,300 children and youths.

Social Security

The CSSA Scheme and Social Security Allowance (SSA) Scheme 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. People in financial hardship receive cash assistance to meet basic needs. At the year end, there were 237,056 CSSA cases involving 348,431 beneficiaries. The scheme's total expenditure was $21.4 billion in 2016, a decrease of 4.3 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 retire there.

Employment Assistance

An Integrated Employment Assistance Programme for Self-reliance under the department helps unemployed able-bodied CSSA recipients aged 15 to 59 and single parents and child carers on

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