The most significant achievements in social welfare during the year were the strengthening of support for families in need, promotion of self-reliance among able-bodied recipients under the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) Scheme, and the re-engineering of community support services for elders.

Strengthening Support for Families in Need

To strengthen services for families in need, the 'child-centred, family-focused and community-based' approach and all the 27 recommendations for service improvement recommended by the 2001 consultancy study on Review of Family Welfare Services were adopted, and implementation has begun. Since April, 15 pilot Integrated Family Service Centre (IFSC) projects with an in-built evaluative study were implemented for a two-year duration. With the aim to provide a continuum of preventive, supportive and remedial services, the IFSCs are meeting family needs in a holistic and cost-effective manner.

    In March, the first multi-purpose Family Crisis Support Centre came into full operation, providing timely professional intervention, short-term accommodation and other support services to assist individuals and families facing marital and family conflicts. It operates on a 24-hour basis. A Suicide Crisis Intervention Centre also commenced operation on a three-year pilot basis, providing round-the-clock outreaching service and crisis intervention/intensive counselling to those who are in a crisis situation and at high/moderate suicidal risk. In order to meet the changing service needs and to enhance efficiency and productivity, the former Family and Child Protective Services Units and Child Custody Service Units were amalgamated in March to form five restructured Family and Child Protective Services Units to provide specialised services relating to child abuse, spouse battering and disputes on child custody on a regional basis.

    Following a major campaign in 2001 on empowering families to face challenges, combating family violence was the theme for publicity and public education efforts in 2002.

Promoting Self-reliance

The Active Employment Assistance Programme under the Support for Self-reliance Scheme continued to provide personalised employment assistance to help unemployed CSSA recipients and low-earning recipients working part-time overcome barriers to work and move towards self-reliance. The Special Job Attachment Programme and Intensive Employment Assistance Fund (IEAF) projects run by NGOs also offered intensive employment assistance to unemployed CSSA recipients and socially disadvantaged groups. With the economic downturn continuing, the number of CSSA unemployment cases surged from 28 886 at end-2001 to 40 513 at end-2002. To reinforce services for the unemployed, eight more NGOs were commissioned during the year to run nine intensive employment programmes with funding support from the IEAF, making a total of 23 projects. Since March, another new initiative, the Ending Exclusion Project, has been implemented with the aim of assisting CSSA single parent families with young children to maximise their chances of participating in social and economic activities, help them raise their self-esteem and sense of personal worth, integrate into society and improve their lives through employment. At year-end, an accumulative 2 397 single parent families had been assisted through the project.

Re-engineering of Community Support Services for Elders

To eliminate service duplication and insufficient coordination arising from service fragmentation, and to provide a service infrastructure that will be more responsive to the changing needs of elders, a major exercise to re-engineer community support services for elders was launched in August. Under the plan, multi-services centres for the elderly will be upgraded to district elderly community centres, social centres for the elderly to neighbourhood elderly centres and home help teams to integrated home care services teams. The re-engineering proposals from NGOs were received in mid-November with the result to be announced in January 2003. The upgraded services would be implemented gradually from April 2003.