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The Commission on Poverty (CoP) Task Force on Children and Youth, chaired by Dr Philemon Choi, held its fourth meeting this morning (March 9).
The Health, Welfare and Food Bureau updated members on the latest development of the Comprehensive Child Development Service (CCDS), which aims to identify the various needs of children up to 5 years and their families at an early stage.
The chairman, Dr Choi, said implementation of the CCDS was an important step in addressing the needs of pre-school children and their families from a preventive angle, and helped identify at-risk children and families including low-income families and those from disadvantaged background.
"I am pleased that the Financial Secretary has reaffirmed the Government's commitment to this service, and has committed additional resources ($20 million annually) to improve and gradually extend its coverage, as well as an additional $30 million annually to strengthen family support, including enhanced out-reach services from Integrated Family Service Centres to outreach the hard-to-reach parents and provide the necessary follow-up support to identified at risk cases," he said.
The meeting also discussed the initiatives to strengthen parenting support for disadvantaged and hard-to-reach parents. The meeting was pleased to note that following a successful sharing session in December, 2005, relevant bureaux and their advisory bodies * had all agreed to give special consideration of the needs of high-need and high-risk parents in designing their parenting programmes in the future.
The task force has also agreed to commission a study to explore possible ways to enhance support to economically disadvantaged and hard-to-reach parents in the performance of their parenting role.
The agenda and papers of the meeting are available at the commission's official website: www.cop.gov.hk.
* Bureaux and advisory bodies currently involved in promoting parenting support include Health, Welfare and Food Bureau, Education and Manpower Bureau, Home Affairs Bureau as well as the Women's Commission, the Community Inclusion and Investment Fund Committee, the Social Welfare Advisory Committee, the Committee on Promotion of Civic Education and the Committee on Home School Co-operation.
Ends/Thursday, March 9, 2006
Issued at HKT 15:24
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