Services for Young People
OBJECTIVES
10.1
Services for young people aim at developing the potential of youth, facilitating their healthy development and assisting them to face challenges from family, peers, school and society, and fostering in them a sense of citizenship with commitment to the community.
SERVICE PROVISION
10.2
The service provision as at 31 March 2013 is as follows:
- 138 Integrated Children and Youth Services Centres
- 23 Children and Youth Centres
- 568 School Social Workers
- 19 Youth Outreaching Teams
- 5 teams of Community Support Service Scheme
- 1 Hotline Service for Youth-at-risk
- 1 625 full fee waiving places under After School Care Programme
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PERIOD
Setting Up a New Integrated Children & Youth Services Centre
10.3
Integrated Children & Youth Services Centres (ICYSCs) aim at providing one-stop centre-based, school social work and outreaching services for young people by a team of social workers under the management of one supervisor in a holistic manner. To cater for the needs of contemporary youth, a new ICYSC was set up in Kwun Tong district through pooling of existing resources in March 2012. As at 31 March 2013, there were 138 ICYSCs.
Enhanced School Social Work Service
10.4
Since 2000/01 school year, SWD has implemented the “one school social worker (SSW) for each secondary school” policy to identify the needy students, help them to solve academic, social and emotional problems. Starting from September 2011, SWD has injected additional recurrent provision of $50.93 million per annum, to enhance a 20% increase in manpower for school social work service i.e. 96 additional SSWs, to provide early identification and timely support to at-risk students.
Additional Youth Outreaching Teams
10.5
There were 16 Youth Outreaching Teams (YOTs) and 18 ICYSCs with overnight outreaching services for young night drifters (YNDs) over the territory to provide counselling and guidance to at-risk youths. To effectively address the needs of high-risk youths and tackle the worsening juvenile gang problems, SWD has injected additional recurrent provision of $12.68 million per annum, to set up three new YOTs, one each in Tseung Kwan O, Ma On Shan and Tung Chung, to reach out to youths at-risk and provide timely counselling, support and guidance to them. The three new YOTs commenced service in January 2013.
Pilot Cyber Youth Outreaching Projects
10.6
With the funding support from the Lotteries Fund, SWD has launched three three-year Pilot Cyber Youth Outreaching Projects since August 2011 and one Evaluative Study. The projects use cyber means to reach out to young people in need, in particular those identified as at-risk or hidden, and provide them timely intervention and supportive service on their various at-risk behaviours in Internet.
District Support Scheme for Children and Youth Development
10.7
With effect from 2005-06, SWD has been provided with an annual recurrent provision of $15 million for implementing the District Support Scheme for Children and Youth Development (the Scheme) through District Social Welfare Offices. The Scheme aims to address the developmental needs, which cannot be covered by other funds, subsidies or the mainstream education systems, of children and youth aged 24 or below in disadvantaged circumstances in the districts. About 40% of the resources were allocated on project basis to cover programme expenses and the remaining 60% were distributed as direct cash assistance to deprived children and youth on individual item expenses to meet their developmental needs. There were a total of
27 142 and 25 112 beneficiaries in 2011-12 and 2012-13 respectively.
Fee Waiving or Reduction Subsidies Scheme under After School Care Programme
10.8
SWD provides annual recurrent funding for the provision of fee-waiving places to parents who cannot afford the services and are unable to take care of their children after school as a result of being engaged in open employment or employment-related retraining/attachment programmes. Eligible parents would be granted full fee waiving or half-fee reduction places for the service according to their family household income.
Child Development Fund
10.9
The Government established the $300 million Child Development Fund (CDF) in 2008 so as to draw on the resources from the family, the private sector, the community and the Government to support the longer-term development of children aged between 10 and 16 from disadvantaged background. SWD has been entrusted with the operational responsibility of CDF.
10.10
The first batch of seven pioneer CDF projects were successfully completed in March 2012. The second and third batches of 33 projects were smoothly rolled out in October 2010 and January 2012 respectively. The three batches of projects benefited more than 4 000 children. A consultancy team was commissioned to evaluate the first batch of seven pioneer projects. According to the final report of the consultancy team, the pioneer projects have achieved the aims of CDF in providing favourable conditions for the participating children to overcome inter-generational poverty. Taking into account the results and recommendations of the study and the practical experience in implementing the first three batches of CDF projects, enhancement measures for the future batches will be implemented.
Support Service to Youth Employment
10.11
As a youth employment support measure in times of economic downturn, SWD had in 2008 provided a total of 3 000 temporary work opportunities (Programme Worker (PW) posts) through NGOs for young people aged between 15 to 29. Under the original plan, the scheme was due to end in March 2013. Since about 2 600 young people were still employed in these temporary positions, the Government extended the temporary positions for 12 months until March 2014 to allow time for the Labour and Welfare Bureau and the NGOs concerned to help these PW incumbents find suitable employment.
