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The Social Welfare Department (SWD) today (January 22) held a Commendation Ceremony for Home-based Child Carers to honour those carers who have demonstrated a spirit of mutual assistance in the neighbourhood and taken an active part in providing home-based child care service under the Neighbourhood Support Child Care Project (NSCCP).
Speaking at the ceremony, the Director of Social Welfare, Mr Patrick Nip, said that the SWD attaches great importance to child care service. Under the NSCCP, a new initiative in addition to the regular ones, carers were engaged in providing needy parents with more flexible services through home-based child care service and centre-based care groups.
"Since its inception as a pilot project at the end of 2008, the NSCCP has achieved the intended outcome and successfully provided support to parents who have to work long or unconventional hours. Helping hands are also lent to parents in need of ad hoc or emergency child care service in order to ensure that their children can be taken care of properly and to avoid the risk of accidents resulting from their being left unattended," he said.
"In this connection, we have decided to regularise NSCCP by the end of this year and extend its coverage from the current 11 administrative districts of the SWD to all 18 districts across the territory. The minimum number of service places available will increase substantially from 440 to 720 so as to benefit more families in need."
Mr Nip also expressed his gratitude to home-based child carers for providing volunteer services to the needy families at the neighbourhood level with care, patience and attentiveness, and for promoting the spirit of mutual help in the neighbourhood.
Today's ceremony was co-organised by the 11 NSCCP operators. Commendations were presented to more than 400 home-based child carers.
These home-based child carers provide child care services at the neighbourhood level in their community. To become a home-based child carer, one needs to have enthusiasm and a caring heart, pass an assessment by social workers on family conditions and abilities, and receive training in respect of child care skills, identification of child abuse cases and home safety.
The recruitment, assessment and training of home-based child carers have to be managed and supervised by registered social workers in order to monitor service quality.
According to the statistics on service utilisation, there were 10,616 children benefiting from NSCCP between April 2009 and the end of December 2010, half of whom were from low-income families and 60% from single parent families. Beneficiaries also included many new arrival or cross-boundary families. These figures showed that NSCCP managed to render assistance to families, especially those with financial difficulties and weaker support networks.
While commending the home-based child carers for their efforts, the SWD also encourages parents in need of child care services to seek help from NSCCP operators in their community and not to leave their children unattended.
For details of the "Neighbourhood Support Child Care Project", please visit the website of the SWD at www.swd.gov.hk
Ends/Saturday, January 22, 2011
Issued at HKT 14:38
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