Hong Kong’s government will provide more resources to primary schools in a push to improve social work and counselling services.
The plan, which is slated for the 2018-19 school year, was unveiled by Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary, Paul Chan, during Wednesday’s 2018 budget speech.
The measure follows a number of child abuse cases in recent months which have put pressure on the government to provide greater resourcing for the city’s primary schools.
According to the Social Welfare Department, there were 704 newly reported child abuse cases between January and September last year.
Chan said to this end, HK$504m will be allocated to launch a three-year pilot scheme to provide social work services to roughly 150,000 children and their families in early childhood education centers.
“I will make optimal use of our resources to cater for those in need with the aim to build a caring and sharing society,” Hong Kong Free Press reported Chan as saying earlier this week.
The provision of social workers in special schools will also be improved, and manpower strengthened for the Social Welfare Department’s Family and Child Protective Services Units. NGOs working on preventing domestic violence will also benefit.
The package will amount to around HK$43m in recurrent expenditure, according to the government.
Chan also announced that NGOs will be provided with subvention to set up cyber youth support teams in order to reach out to high-risk or “hidden” youth, while the ceilings for cash assistance will be raised.
Quotas for disadvantaged children will be increased in the District Support Scheme for Children and Youth Development.
The cash injections involve an additional recurrent expenditure of HK$20.5m and HK$11m respectively. Meanwhile, HK$92m will be allocated to strengthen manpower of residential child care services.
HK$56m will go towards setting up five centers for separated or divorced families, and for boosting manpower at the Social Welfare Department’s relevant units to “enable early identification and more effective intervention for families at risk of separation or divorce.”
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