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The Social Welfare Department (SWD) is making every effort to promote family life education (FLE) in a bid to prevent domestic problems, such as single-parent families, marital conflicts, parent-child relationship, battered spouses and unemployment, faced by many families in Hong Kong.

The SWD's Committee on FLE Publicity Campaign and the Radio Television Hong Kong have jointly produced a series of 10-episode radio docu-drama to illustrate a wide range of problems and issues challenging the families.

Based on genuine cases, each episode will present a typical story of modern families in an open-end drama, with FLE worker's advice on the prevention of the problem at the end of the programme.

As a part of the year-long publicity campaign to convey the thematic message "Care for Your Family", the radio docu-drama is scheduled to be broadcast on Radio 1 and 5 weekly commencing at 11.30 pm tomorrow (Friday).

With an annual funding amounting to $831,000, the publicity campaign will highlight on the roving family puppet shows to be performed in the latter half of the year throughout the territory to arouse public awareness of care and concern in the family.

In addition, an election of happy families is being held by inviting submissions of essays from the general public to share experience on ways to overcome family problems to echo the theme "Care for your Family: Put Your Care in Words". Deadline for the submission is July 5.

Other publicity activities include Announcements of Public Interest (API) on TV and radio, a theme song by the "Care for the Family Ambassador" Miss Yeung Chin-wah, posters, educational booklets and newspaper articles.

As recent social and economic changes have surfaced various family problems, the promotion of FLE is deemed to be a proactive and primary strategy to tackle the issue.

Figures showed that all family services centres throughout the territory had been handling more and more cases, with the total caseload increased from about 48,750 in March last year to some 51,540 in the same period this year representing an increase of six per cent.

To cater for the great demand for family services, the total number of family caseworkers has been increased from 491 to 706 in the past three years and another 26 will be added to the force this year.

End/Thursday, May 21, 1998

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