Hong Kong children’s charity rocked by abuse scandal to build on reforms and add new floor to help families at headquarters
- Society for the Protection of Children says extra floor to be added to its headquarters will be dedicated to care and training for children and counselling for parents
- Executive committee chairman says move part of string of changes at charity since abuse allegations arose in 2021
Vincent Lee Wing-sing, the new executive committee chairman of the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children, said the organisation would add an extra floor to its Mong Kok headquarters to be used as an inclusive area to serve children and their parents.
He said some families in the district struggled with poor living conditions and the services to be provided on the new floor could offer them a break.
“These are some very substantial improvements … the key is to ensure these measures can be sustained,” Lee added.
“We hope that we can really improve our brand and services so that our service users, donors and the government can restore their confidence in us.”
He added it would be about three to four years before the new floor would be ready and available to families.
The new service is part of a revamp of the society, one of the city’s oldest non-profit organisations for children, after it was embroiled in an abuse scandal in 2021.
News of abuse at the society’s Children’s Residential Home broke in December that year and 34 staff were arrested.
It was alleged they abused 40 children at the home, which looked after about 100 children aged up to three who had been abandoned, orphaned or needed care because of family problems.
Lee said the organisation had carried out a series of reforms to improve its management and quality of service in the wake of the scandal.
The home at present has roughly 140 staff, including about 80 childcare workers, along with social work staff, nurses and psychologists, among others.
Lee said the home had also appointed a new child safeguarding consultant who carried out random checks at the home and provided training for staff members.
Inspection of CCTV surveillance at the home has also been increased, with at least three hours of footage examined at random every week.
All but one of the alleged victims caught up in the abuse case have left the home.
The society also introduced changes at its service units, including setting up an academy for child safeguarding last year to improve staff training.
Most of the society’s staff are required to complete 10 hours of training in areas such child development and caregiving each year.
Lee said the society reported to the Social Welfare Department on a regular basis and its committee also carried out reviews to monitor the effectiveness of the new measures.
He added the organisation faced financial pressure and also appealed to authorities to allow it to bid for new services.
“We have not been evasive about the incident at the Children’s Residential Home and we have adopted all the good recommendations,” Lee said.
The 98-year-old society runs 28 service units which help more than 3,000 children aged up to 16 and their families.
Hong Kong has had a string of high-profile child abuse cases in recent times, which triggered a public outcry and calls for better protection for vulnerable youngsters.
Abuse allegations at the society’s home sparked a review of residential childcare and related services led by authorities.
