Chief Secretary Chan Kwok-ki today chaired the 16th meeting of the Commission on Children, during which members offered views on residential child care services.

At the meeting, which was also the first for the third-term commission, Mr Chan welcomed the new members, saying that he looked forward to close collaboration with all commission members in taking forward various initiatives at full steam to jointly safeguard the well-being of children and assist the sector in enhancing their service quality, thereby building a pro-child and inclusive community.

Members were briefed by Social Welfare Department representatives on the second phase review report of the Committee on Review of Residential Child Care & Related Services, covering children's homes, boys'/girls' homes and boys'/girls' hostels as well as non-institutional care, including foster care services and small group homes.

The report recommended increasing the manpower of different ranks, enhancing the internal audit mechanism of service operators, and improving the referral mechanism and guidelines.

On foster care, the report proposed the introduction of flexible recruitment and care arrangements, and strengthened support and training for foster parents.

Members welcomed the report's various recommendations. They offered views on enhancing service quality and monitoring, strengthening manpower deployment, introducing professional support, strengthening staff training and post-discharge support measures as well as the priorities and implementation arrangements of the recommendations.

They also discussed the strategy and major directions on how to promote public education and public relations on the well-being of children.

The commission will launch a series of education and publicity activities related to child protection with the Social Welfare Department, the Education Bureau and Police.