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Following is a question by Hon Cheung Kwok-che and a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, in the Legislative Council today (November 25):
Question:
The Government has indicated in the 2015 Policy Address that it will increase the manpower of social workers in all Integrated Community Centres for Mental Wellness (ICCMWs) so as to enhance the support for mental patients. Many social workers have relayed to me that currently ICCMWs have unclear positioning of their services and their manpower is inadequate. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) given that each ICCMW is currently serving a population of about 330 000 while the number of people in need of mental health services is rising, whether the Government will conduct a detailed study on the demand for ICCMW's services in various districts and increase resources for and manpower of ICCMWs in light of the results of such a study; if it will, of the details;
(2) whether the Government will set up additional ICCMWs in the coming three years to cope with the service demand; if it will, of the details;
(3) given that at present the authorities has only stipulated that the target users of ICCMWs are people aged 15 or above, whether the Government will set an upper age limit for people using ICCMWs, so that ICCMWs can provide services which are more suitable for users, and have a clearer division of labour and collaboration with other types of social services;
(4) whether the Government will, on a regular basis, provide systematic on-the-job training on mental health services to the social workers newly recruited by ICCMWs, so as to enhance service quality and retain talents; if it will, of the details;
(5) as some survey findings have indicated that there is currently a brain drain problem among welfare workers and activity assistants in ICCMWs due to unsatisfactory career prospect, whether the Government will enhance the qualifications recognition and promotion prospects for staff of these grades (e.g. by creating posts/grades such as occupational therapy assistant, rehabilitation training assistant, etc. and providing recognised training to assist them in obtaining professional qualifications); if it will, of the details; and
(6) in respect of the 24 ICCMWs across the territory, of the following information on each ICCMW in each year from 2011-2012 to 2014-2015: (i) team size (i.e. 1 stands for full team and 0.5 stands for half a team, etc.), (ii) number of serious cases handled, (iii) number of general cases handled, (iv) number of members, (v) number of family members served, and (vi) number of social worker posts (set out such information for each year in the table of the same format as the attached table)?
Reply:
President,
The Government has all along been concerned about the needs of persons with mental health problems as well as their families and carers and keeps under review the operation of and demand for community support services to ensure that the services keep abreast of times. The Social Welfare Department (SWD) re-organised the mental health support services in October 2010 by setting up Integrated Community Centres for Mental Wellness (ICCMWs) across the territory through one-stop and district-based delivery mode. ICCMWs provide community support services ranging from prevention to crisis management for discharged mental patients, persons with suspected mental health problems, their families and carers and residents in the community. To dovetail with the Hospital Authority's Case Management Programme for patients with severe mental illness and to provide services for more persons in need, additional resources have been allocated to strengthen the manpower of the ICCMWs in the past four years. The resources allocated to ICCMWs increased from $135 million in 2010 to $217 million in 2015, an increase by more than 60 per cent, to strengthen the manpower and supervisory support of ICCMWs.
My reply to the questions raised by Hon Cheung Kwok-che is as follows:
(1) The ICCMWs have already accumulated considerable experience in service provision since its launching in 2010 and HA's Case Management Programme has been expanded to cover all districts in Hong Kong since 2014-15. SWD is conducting a review of the overall services of ICCMWs, including service planning and positioning, scope of services, manpower of service team, etc. in collaboration with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating ICCMWs, the Hong Kong Council of Social Service and representatives of service user groups. The review is expected to be completed within 2016.
(2) At present, there are 24 ICCMWs in Hong Kong. Individual service centres also set up additional service points in their respective service boundary to provide more accessible service and support to service users. SWD will continue to monitor the operation of ICCMWs and take appropriate measures, including assisting individual ICCMWs to set up additional service points when necessary to meet service need.
(3) ICCMWs mainly provide community psychiatric rehabilitation and mental health services for service users in need. SWD does not set an upper age limit for service users. ICCMWs may collaborate with other service units, such as Integrated Children and Youth Services Centres, Integrated Family Service Centres and District Elderly Community Centres to provide comprehensive and appropriate support to meet other welfare needs of service users.
(4) and (5) According to SWD's Service Quality Standards, the NGOs or service units operating subvented services shall have induction policy and procedures for new staff, a training policy and a plan for staff training and development. NGOs operating ICCMWs can provide suitable training to their staff through the following means:
(a) to enhance the service quality and to retain staff through flexible deployment of the allocated subvention on staff training under the Lump Sum Grant Subvention System;
(b) to provide training for new recruits by seeking funding from the $1 billion Social Welfare Development Fund, which was set up in 2009 in pursuance of the Lump Sum Grant Independent Review Committee's recommendation;
(c) to provide training and training-related activities for social workers for improving their knowledge and skills by applying for grants under SWD's Social Work Training Fund (e.g. to organise for social workers or enroll them in courses/seminars/workshops); and
(d) to enroll their staff in annual mental health related training courses organised by SWD and HA.
SWD will continue to monitor the training needs of the ICCMWs staff and maintain communication with the NGOs and HA with a view to providing suitable training opportunities to enhance their effectiveness at work in meeting the service need.
(6) The statistics on the number of members served, number of family members/carers served and number of cases served by the 24 ICCMWs in 2011-12 to 2014-15 are tabulated in Annex.
According to the Funding and Service Agreement of ICCMWs, the essential staffing requirements of ICCMWs include social worker among other professionals. Under the Lump Sum Grant Subvention System, ICCMWs have the flexibility to deploy the subvention in arranging suitable staffing to ensure service quality to meet service needs. Hence, SWD does not have statistics on the number of social worker posts of each ICCMW. Besides, SWD does not have information on the number of cases with severe mental illness or general mental disorder handled by ICCMWs.
Ends/Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Issued at HKT 16:52
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