In recent years, social service development in China is growing. The need is great but the lack of professional social work administrators and educators in the Mainland hinders the process.

HKCS realizes the urgent need to train the Mainland social work educators. We have always maintained a good relationship with the tertiary institutions offering social work training in both Mainland China and Hong Kong. Currently we are helping to conduct a 5-month attachment program (from October 2004 to the end of March 2005) for two Chinese social work Ph.D. students. This is in response to a request made by the Department of Social Work of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The two students came from Beijing and Wuhan. During the attachment period, they will learn more about the daily operation of social welfare services in Hong Kong and the roles and functions of social workers in different social service settings, especially in the area of youth service. To date, they have already participated in some of the activities with the youth and discussed with the Hong Kong Police Force regarding the youth problems.

These two students will benefit a lot from this attachment. These experiences will be extremely beneficial to their work in the future upon return to the Mainland.