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A two-year pilot project has begun to examine child death cases with a view to coming up with suggestions for improving the current child protection and child welfare services to prevent such fatalities, a spokesman for the Social Welfare Department (SWD) said today (March 4).
The child fatality review, to be carried out by a panel of 14 non-official members, will cover cases of children who died of non-natural causes on or after February 15, 2006.
The Review Panel of the Pilot Project on Child Fatality Review was appointed by the Director of Social Welfare for a term of two years from February 15, 2008, until February 14, 2010.
Panel members come from a variety of backgrounds including medical, social welfare, psychological, legal, education, business, academia and parents.
¡°With their profound knowledge and experience as well as keen interest in child welfare issues, we believe the members will be able to provide invaluable advice to the Government,¡± the spokesman said.
The terms of reference of the review panel are:
1. To examine the service delivery process of organisations/departments concerned, if any, prior to the child¡¯s death;
2. To identify good practice, gaps and deficiency in related services, systems and multi-disciplinary collaboration that may be involved in the cases reviewed and to suggest improvements;
3. To identify patterns and trends through reviewing cases of children who died of non-natural causes in the direction of formulating preventive strategies; and
4. To promote inter-disciplinary and inter-agency co-operation to prevent child death.
¡°Through identifying the pattern and trends of, and examining the practice and service issues pertaining to, the child death cases, it is hoped that useful reference can be drawn from the pilot project for improving related services and systems and enhancing multi-disciplinary collaboration,¡± the spokesman added.
Following is the membership list of the review panel:
Chairman
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Professor Leung Nai-kong
Non-official Members
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Ms Chan Kit-bing, Sumee
Miss Chan Mei-lan, Anna May
Miss Chan Mi-har, Grace
Mr Hui Chung-shing, Herman
Miss Hung Wing-chee
Dr Lam Chan Lan-tak, Gladys
Ms Lam Wai-ling, Leona
Miss Lee Lai-wan, Maria
Professor Shek Tan-lei, Daniel
Miss Tsang Lan-see, Nancy
Ms Wong Yu-pok, Marina
Dr Yiu Gar-chung
Mr Yu Wing-fai, Christopher
Ends/Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Issued at HKT 17:01
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