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Summary
The Asian financial crisis (1997) has created a social care crisis resulting in rising unemployment, poverty, income inequalities and homelessness. Although faced with dwindling public finances, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government had been compelled to tackle these problems. However, it has been attracted to the neo-liberal recipe: changing the subvention system to a block grant, curbing social spending, and tightening eligibility for social assistance. Notably, the introduction of the Intensive Employment Assistance Projects (IEAPs), which are the first welfare to work programs in East Asia, has become a major policy tool. This paper reports on a study of the impact of the projects, one of the key pillars for welfare to work programs. The IEAPs were found to have brought about positive changes in welfare clients' motivation to work and sense of self-reliance. Social workers from both traditional and progressive NGOs have etched, in various ways, their place in the welfare to work programs and contributed to the debate on welfare reform in Hong Kong.