ENG-2020 — Page 214

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Social Welfare

Services for Children

Residential child care services are available for children and young people who are in need of out-of-home care owing to family, behavioural or emotional problems, with 3,928 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.

Day child care services support parents who cannot take care of their children temporarily because of work or other reasons. The SWD subsidises some stand-alone child care centres and child care centres attached to kindergartens to provide full-day child care. At year end, about 7,800 places out of 35,000 available at child care centres were government-subsidised. The SWD was also funding another 449 Occasional Child Care Service places and 2,286 Extended Hours Service places at these centres. The department also subsidises the Neighbourhood Support Child Care Project, providing around 954 places for needy families to receive flexible day child care services from volunteers.

In 2020, the SWD formulated a population-based planning ratio for the provision of child care centre places and included this in the Hong Kong Planning Standards and Guidelines as a long- term goal to provide 100 subsidised child care centre places for children aged under three for every 25,000 population.

Services for Young People

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

Facilities and services operated by the subsidised NGOs include 139 integrated children and youth services centres, which provide centre-based, outreach and school social work services to address young people's developmental needs. Eighteen of these centres offer outreach. services at night to help those who loiter at neighbourhood black spots get back on the right track, while 19 youth outreach teams serve youths at risk and deal with juvenile gang issues. Five 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 2020, government-subsidised NGOs provided 926 school social workers for 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 the Police Superintendent's Discretion Scheme (PSDS), arrested youths and their peers with delinquent behaviour. 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, police officers, and the teachers and parents of juveniles under the PSDS work together to decide what is best for them.

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