IN his new manifesto for the family, Mr Ian Strachan evokes the old adage that prevention is better than cure. He is right. The Director of Welfare has identified a basic failure of social policy not only in Hongkong but in so many societies where theold family support structures are breaking down, divorce is on the increase and children are increasingly at risk. Too often, social workers and welfare departments are only brought in after the damage is done. Better to prevent broken homes, than to have to pick up the pieces afterwards.
The problem is particularly acute in Hongkong. For so many couples the traditional extended family, which their parents and grandparents relied on for support, has remained on the other side of the border in China. Yet the traditional Chinese dependence on the family makes it hard to turn to outsiders for help.
Mr Strachan quotes a 1990 survey showing 68 per cent of the population was aware of the Government's Family Life Education service designed to promote family and parenting skills, yet only five per cent had taken part. It is the higher figure which is the more remarkable. Few couples would turn to such a service except as a last resort.
If Mr Strachan's department can extend its family outreach programmes from those already at risk to young couples before marriage or before they start families - and do so without its workers developing a reputation as interfering busybodies - it will bewell worth the extra manpower and resources he plans to devote to it.
However, it must be hoped the scheme will not divert funds from the rehabilitation and sheltered housing for the handicapped and the elderly, which his predecessor Mr Michael Cartland had only recently begun to make a priority.
