The Chief Executive today announced the first Five-Year Plan for the Economic and Social Development of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (2026-2030) (hereafter “Five-Year Plan”), and the latest Policy Address. Save the Children Hong Kong welcomes the HKSAR Government’s continued focus on the well-being of children and young people. We are particularly pleased to see the Government establish a long-term development blueprint through its first Five-Year Plan, complemented by the annual Policy Address as a concrete roadmap for action. This represents a shift beyond the limitations of planning primarily through annual measures.
Save the Children Hong Kong recognises the range of measures introduced in the Five-Year Plan and Policy Address to strengthen mental health support. These include enhancing the Three-Tier School-based Emergency Mechanism; promoting mental health in the community through the 4Rs Mental Health Charter and the Mental Health Workplace Charter; and continuing to implement the Pilot Programme on Training for Mental Health Promotion Ambassadors. These measures demonstrate the Government’s continued shift from crisis intervention towards prevention, education and community participation, a direction we welcome.
Save the Children Hong Kong believes that, as the Government encourages childbirth, greater emphasis should also be placed on child protection, mental health and family support, so that every child can grow and thrive in a safe and caring environment. Measures to encourage childbirth should connect with the support children need throughout every stage of development. This should extend from easing families’ housing, living and caregiving pressures to strengthening child protection, mental health, educational development and digital safety, thereby establishing a comprehensive and sustainable policy framework for children and families.
Kalina Tsang, CEO of Save the Children Hong Kong, said: “We welcome the longer-term and more comprehensive policy perspective introduced through the Five-Year Plan, as well as the further measures in the Policy Address to promote student and community mental health. Children’s healthy development depends on long-term, coherent and cross-departmental policy support, with different measures working together to address their needs at every stage of development. We hope the Government will seize this opportunity to formulate a ‘Long-term Development Blueprint for Child Protection and Child Mental Health in Hong Kong’, enabling every child to grow up healthy in a safe and caring environment.”
To further strengthen child protection and child mental health policies in Hong Kong, Save the Children Hong Kong highlights the following advocacy directions among its wider recommendations:
Formulate a “Long-term Development Blueprint for Child Protection and Child Mental Health in Hong Kong”
In recent years, the Chinese Mainland has actively promoted the development of child-friendly cities and the protection of minors, incorporating child well-being into its broader development agenda. Building on Hong Kong’s first Five-Year Plan, Save the Children Hong Kong recommends that the Government formulate a “Long-term Development Blueprint for Child Protection and Child Mental Health in Hong Kong”. The blueprint should incorporate child protection, mental health, family support, educational development and digital safety into long-term planning, with specific goals, cross-departmental collaboration mechanisms and performance indicators. This would help move policies from fragmented measures towards comprehensive planning.
We also welcome the Government’s proposed Welfare Information Sharing E-platform. We hope the platform will include comprehensive data on children and integrate information across education, healthcare and social welfare, facilitating the early identification of children at high risk and families in need. It should also regularly publish child well-being indicators and trend analyses to inform targeted, evidence-based policies and services.
Deepen the Implementation of the Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse Ordinance and Establish a Child-Friendly Support System
The Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse Ordinance marks a significant milestone in Hong Kong’s child protection framework. Save the Children Hong Kong recommends that the Government continue to strengthen training for frontline professionals, particularly their capacity to identify psychological and emotional abuse. The Government should also refine cross-disciplinary referral and risk-management mechanisms and explore gradually extending the scope to cover more personnel who frequently come into contact with children.
Drawing on experience from the Chinese Mainland and other parts of the world, we also recommend that the Government establish child-friendly “One-Stop Centres”. These centres should integrate forensic interviews, medical assessments, psychological support, social services and judicial coordination. This would reduce the need for child victims to recount traumatic experiences repeatedly and minimise secondary trauma, thereby fully implementing the principle that the best interests of the child should be a primary consideration. By the end of 2025, more than 2,600 one-stop centres for evidence collection and protection in cases involving minors had been established in the Chinese Mainland, helping to reduce repeated testimonies and secondary trauma among children. The relevant model has also been incorporated into the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Minors and related institutional frameworks, providing an important reference for the future development of child-friendly support systems in Hong Kong. The Government should also provide dedicated support to help schools, social welfare and sports organisations establish comprehensive Child Safeguarding systems and foster a culture centred on child safety and the best interests of the child.
Shift Child Mental Health Support Upstream from “Crisis Intervention” to “Prevention”
Building on the Government’s sustained investment in student mental health in recent years, including the Three-Tier School-based Emergency Mechanism, the promotion of the 4Rs Mental Health Charter and strengthened mental health education, Save the Children Hong Kong recommends further deepening prevention and early intervention. Collaboration among schools, families and communities should support a more sustainable mental health system for children and young people. The Government should systematically incorporate Social and Emotional Learning into school education and collaborate with non-governmental organisations to launch pilot schemes in government primary schools. Relevant elements could be embedded in values education, class-teacher periods, cross-curricular activities, visual arts and physical education, using experiential learning and a whole-school approach to build a positive school culture and promote students’ well-being.
We welcome the Government’s continued implementation of the Pilot Programme on Training for Mental Health Promotion Ambassadors and recommend extending the approach to schools by training children and young people as mental health promotion ambassadors and advancing evidence-based peer support. Save the Children Hong Kong’s research, Hearing Children, found that students experiencing emotional distress often turn first to their peers to talk or seek help, rather than proactively approaching teachers, social workers or parents. We therefore recommend that the Government develop evidence-based peer support programmes. These programmes should equip students with mental health knowledge, crisis identification and referral skills, creating an “identify, accompany and refer” support pathway to complement the existing Three-Tier School-based Emergency Mechanism.
We also recommend that the Government strengthen mental health support for schools at the beginning of each academic year, particularly from September to October. Adjusting to a new school year, transitioning between stages of education and academic pressure can increase students’ emotional risks, while frontline school personnel may not have sufficient time or professional resources to address increasingly complex needs. The Government should allocate additional school-based mental health resources at the beginning of the academic year and strengthen the services provided by social workers, educational psychologists and other professional support personnel. Through collaboration among schools, social services and the healthcare sector, students at higher risk can be identified and supported earlier, shifting mental health work upstream from crisis intervention to prevention and early intervention.
Kalina Tsang said: “Effective child protection and mental health policies provide children with appropriate support at an early stage of need, rather than waiting until a crisis emerges. Prevention begins with identifying risks early and embedding support in schools, families and communities. Policy success should be measured not only by the resources invested, but also by whether every child can receive timely protection and support when they need help. We hope the Government will place child well-being at the heart of its policies and, through cross-departmental collaboration and long-term planning, create a safer and healthier environment for the next generation.”
In addition to the advocacy directions outlined above, Save the Children Hong Kong recommends that the Government continue investing in family support and community-based preventive services. These should include parenting education, positive parenting, support for high-risk families, after-school care and after-school support services, as well as effective use of platforms such as “Community Living Rooms” to reduce the risk factors children face. In view of the phased development and population intake of the Northern Metropolis, we hope the Government will uphold the principle of “welfare planning first, synchronising service provision with population intake”. It should publish completion timetables for child care, family and youth service facilities, and review whether the relevant planning ratios reflect the area’s demographic profile, which is expected to comprise mainly young families. Early provision should also be made for parenting education, child care, children’s primary healthcare and student mental health services, with social welfare organisations able to provide transitional support before residents move in. Drawing on the Chinese Mainland’s experience in developing child-friendly cities, the Government could give priority to children’s needs in Northern Metropolis projects and, where appropriate, introduce child impact assessments and child participation to respond accurately to children’s needs. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and digital technology, we also call on the Government to make children’s digital safety a policy priority by strengthening school education, parental support and technology platforms’ responsibilities for protecting children.
For the full response, please visit our website: https://savethechildren.click/Five-Year-Plan-Policy-Address-2026_PR_ENG.