THE provision of five extra social workers dedicated to detecting child abuse is not sufficient to solve a growing problem, experts warn. The extra posts were to ensure the early detection of child abuse, while a team of specially trained social workers would be set up to help about 500 young drug abusers a year. The Government would also subsidise a youth hotline run by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups. Paul Chan Kam-cheung, deputy executive director of the federation, said he welcomed the subvention. The hotline was operating under a two-year sponsorship by the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, he said. 'But . . . other youth problems failed to get proper attention. It seems the Governor is trying to play down the problems,' Mr Chan said. He said initial results of a federation survey on drug abuse, to be released this month, found most young soft drug addicts also took hard drugs such as heroin. 'The Government should inject more resources and come up with more creative ideas to tackle youth problems,' Mr Chan said. Director of the Against Child Abuse group, Priscilla Lui Tsang Sun-kai, wondered whether the addition of five social workers would help detect child abuse. Mrs Lui said more should be done, such as the introduction of the United Nations convention on children's rights. 'Tackling child abuse is not only the job of the Social Welfare Department, and the problem will not be solved by only increasing the number of social workers,' she said. It required inter-departmental co-operation involving the education and health departments, she added.