Annual Highlights
Highlights of the Year 2023-24
Strive and Rise Programme
The first cohort of the Strive and Rise Programme (the Programme) was successfully completed in November 2023. Evaluation results showed that no less than 70% of the mentees who completed the Programme made progress in enhancing personal development and fostering positive thinking, thus meeting the Programme’s performance indicators. The second cohort has been underway since October 2023, with various enhancements including an increase in the number of mentee, quota to 4 000, a greater variety of group activities with more Mainland study and exchange tours, and the establishment of an Alumni Club, etc.
Child Development Fund (CDF)
A comprehensive review of the CDF Programme was conducted in the second half of 2023. Based on the findings of the review, several recommendations and enhancement measures were proposed, including positioning the target participants of CDF to include Primary 3 to Primary 6 students, advancing the disbursement of the mentees’ targeted savings from the first year to as early as the 13th month of the project, allowing operators to apply for either a single three-year project or two consecutive three-year projects under the “one-plus-one approach”, and relaxing the threshold for the target number of participants, etc. Upon endorsement by the Steering Committee on CDF, SWD incorporated all recommendations and enhancement measures into the 10th batch of school-based projects and NGO-led projects launched in March 2024.
Community-based Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Services
With effect from June 2023, the manpower of Counselling Centres for Psychotropic Substance Abusers and Centres for Drug Counselling was enhanced to strengthen support for pregnant drug abusers and drug-abusing parents.
School-based Three-Tier Emergency Mechanism
The Government launched the “Three-Tier School-based Emergency Mechanism” in all secondary schools in Hong Kong in December 2023 through cross-departmental collaboration among the Education Bureau (EDB), the Health Bureau and SWD to early identify and support students at higher risk of suicide. For the second-tier mechanism, SWD engaged five NGOs to form an “off-campus support network” to provide schools with enhanced external support in the short term.
Pilot Programme on Community Living Room
The Pilot Programme on Community Living Room (CLR) was implemented through a tripartite collaboration involving the Government, the business sector and the community. Under the Pilot Programme, the business sector provides venues while the Community Care Fund allocates funding to commission NGOs to operate the CLRs. These CLRs provide subdivided unit (SDU) households with additional living space and help them establish social networks, thereby enhancing their living standards and sense of belonging to the community. The first CLR, located in Sham Shui Po, commenced operations in December 2023 for a period of three years. Three more CLRs received funding support in March 2024 and are expected to commence operations within 2024. The four CLRs are expected to serve at least 1 750 SDU households with about 270 000 attendances a year.
School-based After School Care Service Scheme
The Government rolled out the School-based After School Care Service Scheme (the Scheme) in the 2023/24 school year to allow primary students in need to stay at school outside of school hours for care and learning support. This will help their parents to return to work and will also benefit single-parent households. The Scheme has recruited 59 primary schools located in the Kowloon City, Yau Tsim Mong, Sham Shui Po, Kwun Tong, Kwai Tsing, Tsuen Wan and Yuen Long districts, providing nearly 3 000 service places.