A NEW approach to helping children solve problems at school and at home will be suggested in a youth report to be released shortly. It will recommend an ''integrated approach'' that combines help from children and youth centres, outreach services, school social workers and family life education. The working party on the review of child and youth centres, set up in March last year by the Secretary for Health and Welfare, hopes to release its report in May for a three-month public consultation. Topics covered include the aims of child and youth centres, their work, manpower arrangements and liaising with other organisations. Speaking at a recent seminar on integrated youth service,the chairman of the committee and executive councillor, Professor Felice Lieh-mak, said: ''We are considering setting up a team that brings together different youth services, from outreach to school social work, in the various districts. ''There will be core programmes covering personal guidance, supportive service for disadvantaged youth, socialisation, and the development of volunteer services.'' Professor Lieh-mak said an integrated approach such as this would be comprehensive enough to help young people solve most of their problems, whether in school or at home. Counselling would be available not only in schools but within the family, too. Programmes for parents or young mothers would be helpful when dealing with children of single parents or those from broken families. Several social service groups have offered views and suggestions on the new approach. Out of these suggestions, two integration models have emerged. One is external integration or co-operation between different groups, and the other is internal integration or co-operation within a single organisation. ''Internal integration is preferred because it will be easy for different sections to work together within the same organisation. A greater degree of trust and good communications would have to be achieved in the case of external integration,'' she pointed out. Professor Lieh-mak said the models would be tested in new towns, and organisations offering multi-youth services would be invited to join. The staff and planning ratio would be one team to 12,000 young people. ''We will focus on the youth population rather than the whole population, as some areas may have a large population but a small number of young people.''
