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The following is issued on behalf of the Child Fatality Review Panel:
The Child Fatality Review Panel today (May 28) published its first report for the prevention of child death. The report contains 21 recommendations for prevention of avoidable child fatality put forth by the Review Panel, which had reviewed the child death cases that occurred in 2008 and 2009.
The Chairman of the Review Panel, Professor Leung Nai-kong, said, "The fatal incidents have caused painful loss of our children, and the Review Panel has always been very sad to review every child death case. However, we hope that the Review Panel's work can help prevent similar unfortunate loss."
He added, "The active participation and positive feedback of various government departments, organisations and service units have greatly assisted the Review Panel to understand related service systems and delivery processes, identify good practices and lessons learnt and come up with recommended improvement measures. The review process has also encouraged and promoted cross-sectoral collaboration and multi-disciplinary co-operation to prevent the occurrence of avoidable child death."
The review covered the deaths of 238 children, aged below 18, who died in 2008 and 2009 of both natural (156) and non-natural (82) causes. They were all reported to the Coroner's Court.
The largest non-natural cause of child death was suicide (26), followed by accidents (23) and assault (18).
Among the 26 child/youth suicide cases, 19 jumped from height to their death. The youngest child who committed suicide was aged 9. Seven recommendations were made in the report for the prevention of child/youth suicide, including public education for children to encourage them to seek help when their peers expressed suicidal thoughts, public education for parents to nurture their children according to their capabilities and help their children build up resilience in the face of failure, and enhancement of the school curriculum in life education and life skills training to strengthen students' coping ability and resilience.
Of the 23 fatal child accident cases, 12 children died in traffic incidents. The Review Panel has made three recommendations on the prevention of fatal traffic accidents, including campaigns to strengthen the road safety awareness of pedestrians, particularly pre-school children, cross-boundary students and those who have newly arrived from the Mainland. Regarding other fatal accident cases, the Review Panel has recommended the use of public education to raise parents' awareness of keeping poisonous substances away from children as well as their alertness to symptoms caused by head injury sustained by children and the immediate intervention required.
On the other hand, 18 children lost their lives as a result of assault, in which 13 perpetrators were their parents. Five recommendations were made to prevent such tragedies, including public education to remind parents of their child care responsibility and not to take away lives under any circumstances as well as to raise public awareness of paying serious attention to suicidal and homicidal signs and threats of parents.
Professor Leung expressed his heartfelt thanks to all the front-line workers, professionals and managerial personnel of service organisations, professional bodies and government departments who had facilitated and participated in the review.
During the review, the Social Welfare Department (SWD) and other government departments and related service organisations gave responses and sought to improve the services concerned.
The responses from different parties to the recommendations of the Review Panel have been included in the report. For the uploaded report on the SWD homepage, please visit www.swd.gov.hk/en/index/site_whatsnew¡@.
After receiving the report of the Review Panel, the Assistant Director (Family and Child Welfare) of the SWD, Mr Fung Man-chung, said, "We appreciate very much the efforts of the Review Panel and acknowledge the value of the child fatality review to facilitate the improvement and enhancement of the current child protection and child welfare service systems."
He added, "The SWD accepts the recommendations of the Review Panel and will continue to enhance multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration in protecting our children."
The SWD attaches great importance to suicide prevention. A variety of territory-wide and district-based publicity and public education programmes on strengthening families, prevention of domestic violence and positive thinking are organised each year. Apart from family life education provided to enhance the public's resilience in adverse circumstances, groups and programmes specifically on equipping parents on how to help their children build up resilience in the face of failure are organised. Through its dedicated Suicide Crisis Intervention Centre, the Samaritan Befrienders Hong Kong also encourages children with suicidal thoughts to seek help from reliable adults or helping professionals as soon as possible.
To prevent child fatality due to assault, the SWD has produced television and radio Announcements in the Public Interest as well as posters with the theme of "Embrace Your Hopes, Cherish Your Love" to publicise to the public the message of "Love your children. Treasure their lives as well as yours." This is in addition to running publicity and public education programmes on strengthening families, prevention of domestic violence and positive thinking. The SWD has also funded three Pilot Cyber Youth Outreaching Projects to proactively find and reach out to at-risk/hidden youths in the Internet. The projects also provide cyber preventive, developmental and remedial services, including the development of web-based education, to help young people enhance their sense of safety when making acquaintances in the cyber world. In addition, the SWD has produced a leaflet to encourage women with unplanned pregnancy to seek help when they encounter difficulty.
Ends/Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Issued at HKT 16:47
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