Stakeholders' Views Gathered at Stakeholder Engagement Session on Making Residential Child Care Services to Better meet the Needs of Children

On Service Model

As the existing residential child care services (RCCS) model has been adopted for many years, service operators generally welcomed the review on RCCS and would like to take part in the review process for the purpose of upgrading RCCS to better meet the needs of children. The RCCS should be reviewed holistically from a macro perspective, with service interface, the positioning of different types of RCCS, emotional needs of children in the transition of services, allocation of resources and service data (such as the number of children requiring after care support, the number who has reunited with families, etc.) taken into account. Medical-social collaboration should also be enhanced with a view to reinforcing the network between services.
As the needs of children varied significantly at different developmental stages, participants of different groups shared the view that the Government should separate children at different age groups in the provision of RCCS to better cater for their needs. Reference could be made to the classifications of local education system, i.e. kindergarten, primary school and secondary school.
The mixed model had been adopted in Small Group Homes. Frontline staff reflected the difficulties they had encountered in the management of these children when they reached the teenage years and started to be curious about sex and gender difference.
There was a service gap for those children or youths with mental health needs who required special attention and were not able to get along well with other children in the RCCS units. Making reference to overseas experience, some participants proposed that half-way home or treatment home services should be offered to them for rehabilitation and preparing them to adapt to the life in RCCS units.
The existing RCCS should address the cultural and religious needs of ethnic minority children, such as food choices and religious rituals.
The existing legislations relevant to RCCS should be reviewed to better protect the service operators as well as the children, for example in cases of intervening the children's behaviour under different circumstances.

On Care and Training plan

Participants shared their common concern on the problems of family reunion. Some children were unable to reunite with their families due to various reasons. The care and training plan should cater for the needs of these children in nurturing their growth and development.
Participants considered that after care support services should be provided to those children not able to reunite with their families, including those beyond the ages of target services requiring to leave the service units. Some of these children suffered from financial difficulties as they could not afford the high cost of living. Consideration could be given to offer them with places in youth hostels as a transitional measure.
Cross-discipline collaboration should be enhanced so as to offer assistance and support to families to prepare for family reunions and choice of suitable types of services for their children in facilitating their growth and development. This was in particular important for parents having their own personal problems such as mental health issues or in prison.
The assessment mechanism should be enhanced and data driven to better understand the individual needs and characteristics of children to identify suitable RCCS, and formulate caring and training plan for them.
Participation of RCCS institutions was suggested in the preparation of long-term welfare plan for resident children, to facilitate assessment of their conditions for cases under the protection order.

On Premises and Facilities

Participants were concerned about the provision of adequate space to cater for the diversified needs of resident children, such as children with emotional problems who required isolated areas for calming down, and children using wheelchairs and walking aids which took more space for the children to move around. Separately, some parents'/ carers' participants found the service units were old, but some others considered the environment satisfactory as the service units had been newly renovated.
Some participants suggested that the design of the premises and facilities should meet the special needs of resident children such as having more function rooms. They also raised the difficulties in sharing the facilities at schools which were tailor made to the needs of these children.

On Manpower and Staff Training

Participants were concerned about the manpower shortage problem and high turnover of staff which had affected the quality of care service provided to the resident children. They pointed out that the existing manning ratio of child care workers in various RCCS was insufficient to provide comprehensive care service to each resident child. They suggested to review the remuneration and provide better career prospects for child care workers having regard to the recruitment difficulties. As for supervisory personnel, it was suggested to enhance the manning ratio and their professionalism as the overall staff quality and manning ratio of supervisory staff were less than satisfactory.
In view of the increasing number of children with Special Education Needs (SEN) and mental health needs in RCCS, participants pointed out that there was a lack of professional support including physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and clinical psychology. As many of these children were receiving medication treatment, medical support was also required for dispensing medicine and other medical follow up for the resident children.
Participants were concerned about the professionalism of child care workers. It was suggested to provide professional training to child care workers in a systematic approach to equip them with knowledge and skills in handling children with SEN and mental health issues. Besides, the qualification of training programmes on child care service should be professionally recognised in order to enhance the professionalism of child care workers.
Management staff reflected that there was little capacity for individual institution to arrange training for the staff having regard to the stringent manpower and the intense care required by the resident children. Proposed improvements included recruiting relieve staff and offering onsite training to facilitate staff to attend the training as far as possible. Some frontline staff also suggested to establish collaboration with medical sector for sharing their escort duties of taking the resident children for medical consultation.

On Service Monitoring

A parent participant shared that her child was given wrong medicine once in the residential child care centre (RCCC). The participation of parents in the monitoring of services should be increased.
Some participants suggested to make reference to overseas' successful experience in carrying out the review in the monitoring mechanism. A proactive monitoring mechanism of RCCS was preferred with a focus on children's needs and their positive experience.

On Quality of Service

Most parents/ carers' participants were satisfied with the RCCS services their children were receiving, which was helpful in terms of taking care of their children, rendering of emotional counselling, as well as developing the self-care skills of children.

Others

Some parents/ carers' participants expressed their concerns on the tightened home leave arrangement under the COVID-19 pandemic which made it difficult for families paying visits to their children who were residing in the RCCCs. Hence, they were not able to fully understand the conditions of their children.
Some other parents/ carers' participants suggested that the Government should enhance their knowledge towards the requirements of different benefits for children receiving RCCS. For example, some parents were not aware that the allowance of existing Higher Disability Allowance recipient would be adjusted to Normal Disability Allowance if they were receiving care in the residential institutions subsidised by the government. The reduction in allowance put a financial burden on the families in meeting the special needs of their children, in particular for families with children diagnosed with orphan diseases.
There were concerns from some management staff on the inadequate supply of emergency/ short term care RCCS places to meet the needs of urgent residential care due to various kinds of family difficulties and crises.
Some management staff participants considered that the review on and enhancement of RCCS would be a long term process. The Government should take forward short term measures to address the immediate needs of children accommodating in the RCCS units.