Save the Children Hong Kong welcomes this year’s Policy Address for introducing substantial measures to address children’s and adolescents’ mental health. We express our support to these measures that represent an important step towards comprehensive child protection. Kalina Tsang, the CEO of Save the Children Hong Kong said, “Mental health and child abuse are two of the most pressing challenges facing children in Hong Kong today. We support the Government’s efforts to integrate mental health support into education and recommend that it go further by incorporating ‘Social and Emotional Learning’ and ‘Child-centred Mental Health First Aid’ into school curricula to strengthen the effectiveness of the ‘three-tier emergency response mechanism’. Beyond mental health, child protection policies are equally important, including the Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse Ordinance (hereafter ‘the Ordinance’). The Ordinance will soon come into effect; however, legislation is only the starting point, and the Government must not stop at legislation.”

In addition, we call on the Government to require all child-facing organisations to establish child safeguarding policies, fostering a culture of protection across all sectors of society. We also hope the Government will listen to voices from the field and consolidate efforts to develop more forward-looking child policies to ensure every child grows up in a safe, respectful and caring environment. We urge the Government to formulate a comprehensive child development blueprint, integrating fragmented policies into a child-centred framework, making full use of existing resources to advance child-related policies and continuously address the challenges of child protection and children’s mental health.

Child Protection: Strengthening Professional Training and Establishing a Cross-Disciplinary Advisory and Coordination Group with a Clear Collaboration Framework

We are pleased to see the Government continuing to provide training and resources for professionals in preparation for the implementation of the Ordinance next year, as well as enhancing the promotion of positive parenting education. Moreover, we recommend that the Government allocate sufficient resources to establish a cross-disciplinary advisory and coordination group following the Ordinance’s implementation. This group should be responsible for the ongoing review and improvement of reporting procedures, integrating expertise from the social welfare, education, healthcare, and law enforcement sectors, and developing a clear framework for collaboration. We hope that the sector will ultimately build a well-connected support network and implement a locally adapted model. In addition, the Government must address the foreseeable service pressures that will arise after the Ordinance comes into effect.

Currently, there is a long-standing and serious shortage of child care placements in Hong Kong. We hope the government will accelerate the expansion of placement supply to ensure services can meet the needs of children across different age groups—from infants to adolescents—so as to respond to the expected increase in emergency placements after the Ordinance comes into effect and ensure timely protection for children.

We urge the government to expand and provide targeted training to help professionals in various fields (such as teachers, social workers, and healthcare personnel) understand the factors for assessing “serious harm” within their specific work contexts. At the same time, tertiary institutions should be encouraged to incorporate mandatory reporting procedures into professional qualification programmes. To ensure the mechanism remains up to date, the government should conduct regular reviews to assess whether sufficient social resources are available to follow up on cases, examine reporting data and trends, and continuously analyse and improve the Mandatory Reporter’s Guide.

The responsibility to protect children does not rest solely with professionals—it must be rooted in society as a whole. The government must strengthen public education to promote a culture of child protection and zero tolerance for child abuse. Promoting home-school collaboration is particularly important. Through parent-teacher associations, schools and parents can establish good communication and build a trusted protection network together. Additionally, we reiterate that the government should require all organisations providing services to children to establish child safeguarding policies. Save the Children Hong Kong’s safeguarding services have already engaged over 200 organisations, demonstrating that a safeguarding culture is feasible in Hong Kong. Therefore, we hope the government will set this as a standard and foster a culture of child protection within institutions.

Children’s Mental Health: Welcome Institutionalising the Three-tier Response Mechanism; Encourage Integrate “Social and Emotional Learning” and “Child-centred Mental Health First Aid” into School Curricula

The “Three-tier Response Mechanism” has been piloted in all secondary schools since December 2023. We welcome the government institutionalises and extends this mechanism to upper primary school students, and encourages more school staff to undergo mental health first aid training. Furthermore, we recommend integrating “social-emotional learning” and “child-centered mental health first aid” into the school curriculum within the first and second tiers of the mechanism. Over the past year, Save the Children Hong Kong has collaborated with schools through programmes such as “Integrating Social and Emotional Learning into School,” “Play to Thrive,” and “Healing Heart and Mind”, using arts and sports as entry points to integrate social and emotional learning into the curriculum, helping over 1,000 students improve their mental health. Save the Children Hong Kong has co-developed a Child-centred Mental Health First Aid programme with the World Health Organization. We call on the government to collaborate with non-governmental organisations to implement this programme across all schools to enhance the effectiveness of the mechanism.

Supporting families in vulnerable environments is a key part of safeguarding children’s mental health. We welcome the government’s continued investing resources in enhancing after-school care services in schools. Furthermore, we recommend incorporating elements such as “social and emotional learning” and “child-centered mental health first aid” into these services to strengthen students’ resilience. More importantly, mental health services should not only focus on the individual child but also extend to the entire family to reinforce the protective function of the family unit.

Conclusion: Realign Resources with the Best Interests of the Child as the Guiding Principle

Save the Children Hong Kong believes that addressing the challenges faced by children requires the reorganisation and innovation of services and resources. While the Government has actively expanded the functions of “Community Living Rooms” in the Policy Address, we look forward to further leveraging schools and community halls to unlock idle spaces, providing more diverse services for children and families during weekends and holidays.

In summary, we hope all child-related policy-making and resource allocation will be based on the core principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child—with the best interests of the child as the primary consideration. Only in this way can we build a truly safe, healthy, and opportunity-filled future for the next generation in Hong Kong.