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The Director of Social Welfare, Mr Patrick Nip, today (September 27) visited a secondary school in Sha Tin to see for himself the implementation of enhanced school social work services following the provision of additional government funding to secondary schools this academic year.
Mr Nip toured an anti-drug exhibition and took part in a student team-building programme organised by school social workers of the Hong Kong Children & Youth Services (HKCYS) at Lock Tao Secondary School. He also chatted with the principal, teachers, school social workers and students, listening to their views on the enhanced services.
Social Work Supervisor of the HKCYS, Mr Au Ning-wah, revealed that HKCYS was currently providing school social work services to some 40 secondary schools. The additional government funding enabled the non-governmental organisation (NGO) to increase social workers by 20 per cent to set up support teams for school social work services. Thus more activities and guidance programmes can be run for the students in general, and individual students with personal problems can also be better aided and dealt with.
Mr Nip was pleased to learn that students of the school had already taken the initiative to engage themselves in campus life at the beginning of this academic year. He encouraged them to continue to participate in more activities for the betterment of body and mind.
"The years of secondary education are very important to young people as a stage of growth and development, during which they have to face up to the challenges and pressure arising from studies. In addition, they may also encounter some difficulties in relation to themselves, families, peers and the community," Mr Nip said.
"In recent years, our society has expressed grave concern about youth problems, such as abuses of designer drugs, youth gangs, compensated dating and so on. To deal with these problems, both precautionary and remedial measures are of identical importance. We also need the participation and support of all walks of life, especially the Government, NGOs, schools and families.
"To enable school social work services to carry out focused anti-drug work and strengthen related counselling services, we have allocated an additional recurrent funding of more than $50 million per year to increase the manpower of school social workers by 20 per cent starting this year," he added.
Mr Nip hoped that NGOs and schools could enhance partnership in providing comprehensive and effective support for students through various guidance services and activities. While instilling healthy lifestyles and positive values in all students, they could also identify and help individual students with personal problems.
Since the 2000/01 academic year, the SWD has implemented the policy of "one school social worker for each secondary school". Each whole-day secondary school is provided with a school social worker with the aim of identifying students with academic, social or emotional problems and give them the necessary assistance.
As from this academic year, the Government has provided extra funding to create an additional 96 school social worker posts, bringing the total number to 574. The recurrent expenditure on the service will exceed $250 million per year.
Ends/Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Issued at HKT 17:23
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