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Reforming the supervision of social welfare institutions to prevent child abuse is inescapable

2022-08-18T10:41:30.100Z


After the "Children's Joy" child abuse case under the umbrella of the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children, the Social Welfare Department established a Review Committee on Residential Care and Related Services for Children. The committee conducts a two-stage review. The first stage focuses on residential child care centre services.


After the "Children's Joy" child abuse case under the umbrella of the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children, the Social Welfare Department established a Review Committee on Residential Care and Related Services for Children.

The committee will conduct a two-stage review. The first stage focuses on residential child care centre services. The review report is expected to be completed within this month.

It is reported that the report lists 30 recommendations, and the committee's reform direction for residential services and supervision is desirable, but there are still loopholes in relying on professional judgment, and there is no follow-up on the punishment of the Society for the Protection of Children.


The child abuse case revealed the lack of various services and supervision of Tongleju, the Society for the Protection of Children and the Social Welfare Department, especially the lack of staff and volunteers, the staff shielding each other, and the management ignoring or ignoring child abuse. Examining documents and institutional self-assessments, the inspection content does not pay attention to the situation of children, ignoring or even not reviewing CCTV footage, etc.

Inspection, supervision, and the dean bear heavy responsibilities

The committee's discussion paper lists 30 feasible proposals.

In terms of services, the manpower ratio of child care workers will be reduced, and the number of senior child care workers, social workers, nurses, and clinical psychologists will be increased, and employees will be required to receive pre-service, on-the-job and child abuse prevention training.

In terms of supervision of residential homes, superintendents must report suspected cases of child abuse and neglect. It is recommended to establish an internal service review mechanism led by senior management and establish a reporting system.

In addition, managers should submit management reports to the organization's governance committee no less than half a year.

The child abuse scandal broke out in the "Tong Le Ju" under the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children. The independent review committee reviewed the report and mentioned that it had accepted the resignation of the director general of the society, Cai Su Shuxian.

(Photo by Ou Jiale)

In terms of external supervision, the Review Committee recommends that organisations invite external parties to conduct on-site inspections. The SWD may include health inspectors as nurses and officers who have worked in law enforcement agencies in the supervision team to conduct on-site inspections at least six times every 12 months.

During the inspection, the inspection team will spot-check the CCTV records, and will also pay special attention to the physical health of the children.

In addition, the SWD can set up a service quality team for residential care homes. Members of the community include justices of the peace and other members of the community to make unannounced on-site inspections of the centres to collect opinions from staff and children's relatives to strengthen monitoring.

All in all, the Review Committee recommends conducting more intensive inspections focusing on children’s health through the complaint and reporting mechanism and inviting external and professional personnel, hoping to prevent staff from abusing children in institutions. The increase can reduce the work stress of the workers.

The report's vision must always be augmented and revised

In addition to the SWD committee report, the Society for the Protection of Children commissioned an independent review committee to write an investigation report that was published at the beginning of the year.

The reform directions of the two reports are generally the same. Some of the recommendations of the Review Committee are even more detailed than those of the SWD Committee. For example, they include reviewing the system of employee exit interviews. After all, resigned employees are less pressured by peers or peers and may be more willing to disclose the actual work situation. It is worth promoting to all care homes in Hong Kong.

Xia Mu (left), chairman of the Executive Committee of the Society for the Protection of Children, bowed and apologized.

(Photo by Lu Yiming)

However, the two reports differ in their assessment of the functions of professionals.

The SWD Committee assumes that nurses and social workers can enhance the effectiveness of supervision and training with professional knowledge and experience. However, we must not forget that it was the neighbors, not the social workers and nurses, who exposed the wrongdoing. The child's injuries were not reported to the SWD, and the social worker was not suspicious of the injuries.

We believe that these professionals will be more alert to children after the Tongleju incident, but in order to prevent them and all employees from failing to report for any reason in the future, the government still has to speed up the revision of the Act on the Mechanism for Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse, not until next year It was only submitted to the Legislative Council for deliberation in the first half of the year, so they always keep in mind their duty of care.

Continue to hold institutions and SWD accountable

In addition, the industry generally reported a shortage and high turnover rate of early childhood workers. The Child Protection Committee speculates that this may explain why management has not severely reprimanded or punished employees.

In this regard, the SWD and the industry must try to improve the treatment and status of staff, attract new recruits, and ensure that the vision of children's healthy and happy growth and development can be realized.

After the child abuse case, abusive staff have been sentenced to prison one after another. The SWD Committee’s review report also reiterated that there is a current law that allows the Director of SWD to cancel the registration of the center supervisor or child care worker who violated the rules, but the SWD of the organization and the ultimate supervisor Gently put it down, the then Director-General just resigned, and the Society for the Protection of Children was only cut by 1.8 million yuan from the SWD.

Law Chi-kwong, the former Secretary for Labour and Welfare, once said that the current service is insufficient, and it is "sad to heaven" to cancel the agreement with Tong Leju, but this is like condoning the responsibility of the organization and the leadership, and it is not the attitude of social services.

Even though it is difficult to change the operating group, the government must continue to hold the institutions and leadership responsible for negligence in taking care of children, breaching allowances and service agreements, including the deduction or termination of block grants by the SWD, or even taking over the children's house. Institutions act as a deterrent.

The review of child abuse cases cannot "sigh slow"

Source: hk1

All news articles on 2022-08-18

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