Enhancing child care services

1. To assist parents who cannot take care of their children temporarily because of work or other reasons, the Government subsidises NGOs to provide a variety of child care services, and provides needy families or low-income families with fee waiving or reduction of varying degrees for child care services. Some of the services are set out in the ensuing paragraphs.

Services of standalone child care centres (CCCs) and CCCs attached to kindergartens

2. CCCs offer day care services to children aged under three in a safe and nurturing environment, including standalone CCCs and CCCs attached to kindergartens. At present, there are about 33 000 CCC places, including about 7 000 aided places. Among them, seven aided standalone CCCs underwent in-situ expansion from 2014-15 to 2016-17, increasing the number of places from 690 to 738.
3. Starting from 2018-19, the Government will provide a total of about 300 additional aided standalone CCC places in phases in four districts, increasing the total number of places to around 1 000. On the other hand, the Government encourages NGOs to set up CCCs under the Special Scheme on Privately Owned Sites for Welfare Uses, and is exploring the feasibility of providing on a pilot basis 100 NGO-operated child care places for staff members in the proposed Government Complex in Tseung Kwan O.
4. The Government will continue to monitor the demand for child care services and plan for new CCCs in districts with acute demand.

Flexible child care services

5. Occasional child care service (OCCS) and extended hours service (EHS) are ancillary child care services, serving children aged under six. At present, there are 434 OCCS places and 2 254 EHS places (including the about 1 200 places rolled out in 2015-16). The Government also plans to provide an additional 3 800 EHS places in phases having regard to the demand by districts.
6. The operation of the Neighbourhood Support Child Care Project (NSCCP) remains unchanged as set out in the previous report. As regards some commentators’ suggestions on the adjustment of the incentive payments and the strengthening of training for home-based child carers, SWD will, upon the completion of the Consultancy Study on the Long-term Development of Child Care Services (the Study) (please refer to paragraph 11.40 under Article 11 for details), make reference to the Study’s recommendations on NSCCP and formulate the way forward.

After-school care services

7. Supportive after-school care services have been provided by NGOs for children aged six to 12 so that children whose parents are unable to care for them during after-school hours owing to work, job-search or other reasons could receive proper care. Through the “Fee Waiving Subsidy Scheme” for After School Care Programme (ASCP), SWD provides assistance to needy families by waiving or reducing the fee of after-school care services. As at end-February 2018, there were 156 ASCP centres providing a total of 1 783 full fee-waiving places. To support parents who may have longer/unstable working hours or those who need to work over weekends, the Government has since December 2014 strengthened the ASCP by extending the service hours on weekday evenings, Saturdays, Sundays and school holidays in some after-school care centres, and providing additional fee-waiving and fee-reduction quotas. At present, there are 34 ASCP centres operating the enhanced after-school care services, providing an additional 457 full fee-waiving places.
8. To strengthen support for needy families in addressing their needs for child care services, SWD rolled out a three-year “Pilot Scheme on Relaxing the Household Income Limit of the Fee-waiving Subsidy Scheme under the After School Care Programme for Low-income Families and Increasing Fee-waiving Subsidy Places” (the Pilot Scheme) through the Community Care Fund (CCF) in October 2017. The Pilot Scheme will last for three years, which is expected to provide an additional 2 000 full fee-waiving places and benefit about 3 000 children. At present, there are 127 ASCP centres joining the Pilot Scheme. As at end-February 2018, a total of 210 fee-waiving places were allocated under the Pilot Scheme.

Enabling grandparents to become child carers

9. SWD launched a two-year “Pilot Project on Child Care Training for Grandparents” in March 2016, which aimed at enabling grandparents to become well-trained child carers in the home setting and strengthening family ties between generations. The Pilot Project was well received with a total of 589 grandparents trainees. The training bodies, grandparent trainees and their family members all confirmed the Pilot Project’s effectiveness. SWD has completed the review of the Pilot Project, and is considering launching a new round of similar training courses by the end of 2018 with more places for grandparents and grandparents-to-be.