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- Foster Care


Foster care service 

   

Service Description of Foster Care Service

Foster Care
Foster Care provides residential family care to children under 18 years of age whose parents cannot adequately take care of them due to various reasons, so that they can continue to enjoy family life until they can re-unite with their families, join an adoptive family or live independently.

 

 

 

 

Foster Care (Emergency)
Foster Care (Emergency) provides immediate and short-term residential family care to children under 18 years of age, whose parents cannot care for them because of emergency or crisis situations, so that they can continue to enjoy family life  until they can reunite with their families or secure a long-term placement. The duration of care should not exceed 6 weeks.
 

 

 

Target Groups

 

Foster Child in need of Foster Care or Foster Care (Emergency)
Child between newborn and under 18 years of age, normal in health and intelligence or mildly mentally handicapped.
 
 

Foster parents
The ideal foster parents should preferably have:
-

happy family life and stable life style

- good health and stable emotion
- reached the age of 25 or above
- primary education standard or above
- tidy, clean and safe living condition with adequate living space
- fondness for children and have experience and ability in child care
- arrange adequate care plan for the child
-

readiness to accept social worker's investigation and guidance
(Even though you cannot meet all of the above requirements, you are welcome to contact us at 2573 2282 to facilitate our consideration on individual case.) 
 

 


Training or other programs for foster parents

 
 Topic of Training Program  Program Date  Target  Venue

Workshop: Relaxing but Effective Parenting

Objectives:    To equip foster parents with effective parenting skills and to learn how to enhance parent-child relationship

* The talk includes lectures, demonstration & case sharing

Speaker: Social Worker of TWGHs with experience of 'Parents-child Interaction Therapy'

 

28. 6. 2013(Friday)
9:15 am - 12:00 noon

 

About 80 foster parents

 

Ngau Chi Wan   Civic Centre
- Lecture Room

 

Talk: How to render an effective support to Foster Children in relation to their Social and Emotional Development

Objectives:    To facilitate foster parents to learn knowledge and skills for getting forward a healthy social and emotional development of the foster children under their care

Speaker: Clinical Psychologist of Social Welfare Department

 

13.9. 2013(Friday)
9:15 am - 12:30 pm
 

About 100 foster parents

 

Tuen Mun Town Hall- Lecture Room 

Talk: How to deal with Foster Children Suffering from  Specific Learning Difficulties

Objectives:    To enable foster parents to get knowledge of 'Specific Learning Difficulties' and to learn how to care effectively those foster children encountering the difficulties

Speaker:  Medical Officer of Health Department

15.11. 2013(Friday)
9:15 am - 12:30pm

About 100 foster parents

 Pamela Youde Assessment Centre (Shatin) 
- Lecture Room

 

* Invitation letter will be sent to all foster parents six weeks before the execution of each training program

Central Foster Care Unit of Social Welfare Department will try its best to provide foster parents with support, inlcuding organizing training workshops & talks regularly particularly paying attention to their needs of training related to care for foster children.  Its social workers will also conduct Liaison & Sharing Group in different districts regularly to collect opinions of foster parents and to identify their needs for continuous improvement and development of foster care.

   

Information on Service Statistics

As at the end of March 2013, the service statistics on foster care are as follows:

No. of Foster Homes 910
No. of Foster Children in Placement 917
   

Application Procedures

For Children in need of Foster Care Placement
Please contact integrated family service centres, medical social work units or other social service units for interviews and referrals.

For Families interested to become Foster Parents
Please contact Central Foster Care Unit of the Social Welfare Department
Room 2202, 22/F., Southorn Centre, 130 Hennessy Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong
Tel. No.: 2573 2282
Fax No.: 2573 2120

Opening Hours: 

Monday to Friday 
8:45 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Closed on Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays 

 

 

Or contact the foster care agencies which are responsible for recruiting foster homes in the 3 specific districts (West Kowloon, Hong Kong Island & New Territories East) for further enquiries.

Please refer to the attached MS-Word file (List of Foster Care Agencies for recruitment and assessment of foster homes)

 

Foster Care Leaflet

 AI Document (Leaflet) 

 

Fees and Charges

Foster care is free of charge.  Foster parents will receive Foster Care Allowance for maintenance of foster children's monthly expenses.  In addition, they will receive incentive payment which is non-taxable.

 

Intranet of Foster Care Service

'Intranet of Foster Care' is a newsletter published by the Central Foster Care Unit. The content of the Newsletter includes the latest development of foster care, programme forecast on training and publicity, etc. It aims at facilitating foster parents, foster children, referring workers and foster care workers, to attain a better understanding of the service development and enhance their mutual communication for a smooth cooperation.

Our most recent Newsletters (in Chinese version only) are placed below for your reference : 

 

 

Feb  2013PDF Document(Page 1 (Page 2)  (Page 3)   (Page 4) 

Jun  2012PDF Document(Page 1 (Page 2)  (Page 3)   (Page 4

Nov  2011AI Document (Page 1 (Page 2)  (Page 3)   (Page 4

May 2011AI Document (Page 1 (Page 2)  (Page 3)   (Page 4)   (Name list 1)   (Name list 2)