The Social Welfare Department announced today that it will deploy a designated team to follow up on a suspected child maltreatment incident that took place at a residential child care centre in Mong Kok last December.

It explained that the designated team, comprising social workers, nurses and personnel with experience in supervising child care centres, will be stationed at the centre every day beginning January 17.

The team will closely monitor the centre's daily operation on the ground to ensure that its operation measures up to the required service standard and that effective improvement measures have been put in place to provide children with proper care.

The team will operate until the improvement measures and the centre’s operation meet the department's requirements.

Since the incident, the department has taken a series of actions, including sending an interdisciplinary team comprising more than 20 clinical psychologists, nurses and social workers to the child care centre on December 27 to conduct investigations.

Such actions also included inspecting the centre’s operation and work records and observing the behaviour, health and emotional status of each of the 70 children in the centre to ensure they were in stable condition.

Additionally, the department met the executive committee and the management of the organisation which operates the service unit concerned on December 28 to receive a briefing on its handling of the incident and follow-up actions.

Furthermore, the department has stepped up inspections at the centre and continued investigations on the incident. Warning letters and directives for remedial measures were issued to the organisation, requesting it to strengthen its supervision and monitoring of frontline staff.

The organisation is required to submit a review report by January 25.

The department stressed that it will continue to follow up on the incident in a serious manner and subject to the investigation results on different fronts, it may take further regulatory actions in accordance with the laws.