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Child Care Services

Enhancing Day Child Care Service

  • SWD had enhanced the manning ratios for qualified child care workers serving in aided child care centres (CCCs) since the 2019/20 school year. The manning ratios were enhanced from 1:8 to 1:6 for children aged 0 to under 2 and from 1:14 to 1:11 for children aged 2 to under 3.
  • To alleviate parents' financial burden, the level of subsidy to CCC service was increased in the 2019/20 school year. Apart from shouldering the full cost for enhancing the manning ratios for child care workers, SWD also implemented the Child Care Centre Parent Subsidy, which provides the parents with direct subsidy to pay the service fee of aided child care centres since February 2020.
  • To enhance the long-term planning of child care services, SWD incorporated the population-based planning ratio for CCC places in the Hong Kong Planning Standards and Guidelines in March 2020 with a view to reserving suitable premises in development projects for CCC operations.
  • The service quality of the Neighbourhood Support Child Care Project was further enhanced in January 2020 by providing additional professional and supporting staff to strengthen the training of home-based child carers. The level of incentive payment for home-based child carers was also increased in order to encourage more volunteers to join as home-based child carers.

Additional Places of Residential Child Care Services

To enhance support for families in need, SWD set up 4 small group homes in So Uk Estate, Sham Shui Po in August 2019, providing a total of 30 additional small group home places and 5 additional places of emergency/short-term care in small group homes. Besides, a boys' home with school for social development on-site was reprovisioned to Tuen Mun District by the Education Bureau and SWD in October 2019, and its capacity was increased by 45 places in the first phase.

Improving the Accommodation Facilities of Residential Child Care Service

To improve the facilities of residential child care service, SWD commenced the environment improvement programme for small group homes in 2019-20. Allocations from Lotteries Fund for the improvement works have been approved for 8 small group homes in the first phase. To facilitate smooth implementation of the programme, SWD will provide the participating small group home operators with financial support to meet the rental expenses in securing suitable temporary accommodation for children during the renovation period.


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