ENG-2018 — Page 220

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Social Welfare

At the tertiary level, 11 family and child protective services units render specialised services for cases of spouse or cohabitant battering, child abuse or child custody dispute.

Services for Children

Children and young people who are assessed to be in need of out-of-home care owing to family, behavioural or emotional problems have recourse to residential care, with 3,839 such places provided at the year end. The department also works with three NGOs accredited under the Adoption Ordinance to arrange local or overseas adoption for children whose parents have abandoned or are unable to maintain them.

The department provides day child care services to support parents who cannot take care of their children temporarily because of work or other reasons. Together with the Education Bureau, it subsidises some stand-alone child care centres and kindergarten-cum-child care centres to provide full-day child care. At the year end, about 7,500 places out of 35,500 available at child care centres were government-subsidised; the department was also funding another 446 Occasional Child Care Service places and 2,260 Extended Hours Service places at these centres. The Neighbourhood Support Child Care Project, which provides at least 954 places for needy families to receive flexible child care services from volunteers, obtains the department's subsidies as well.

In 2018, the department completed a study on the long-term development of child care services. Recommendations by the consultant team included formulating a planning ratio for the provision of child care places, enhancing the manpower ratios for qualified child care workers serving in these centres and increasing child care subsidies.

Services for Young People

The department subsidises NGOs to provide young people aged between six and 24, including those at risk, with preventive, supportive and remedial services.

Facilities and services operated by the subsidised NGOs include 139 integrated children and youth services centres (ICYSCs), which provide centre-based, outreach and school social work services to address young people's developmental needs. Nineteen youth outreach teams serve high-risk youths and deal with juvenile gang issues. Eighteen designated ICYSCs offer outreach services at night to help youths who loiter at neighbourhood black spots get back on the right track. Cyber youth support teams provide professional social work intervention such as online and offline counselling, and form partnerships with other community stakeholders to foster cross-sectoral collaboration, to address the needs of at-risk and hidden youths. In 2018, government-subsidised NGOs provided 559 school social workers to 463 secondary schools to help students with academic, social and emotional problems.

Juvenile Delinquents

Five NGO-operated Community Support Service Scheme teams help young people who are subject to a Police Superintendent's Discretion Scheme (PSDS). The Family Conference Scheme, run jointly by the SWD and the police, helps juveniles who have been cautioned under the PSDS for the second time or are in need of the services of three or more parties. Social workers,

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