Hong Kong New World Development CEO sets up personal foundation to help children with mental health issues, as Covid pandemic takes its toll on city’s young
- WEMP foundation by Adrian Cheng will provide financial aid for cases diagnosed with severe conditions, as well as provide counselling for carers
- It counts as advisers high-profile individuals across various sectors, who will offer parenting tips
Chan Man, 67, almost had a mental breakdown two years ago after her grandson, Jimmy*, now 12, started skipping school and completely shut himself off at home for months while he suffered from depression.
The Covid-19 pandemic had just emerged, and Hong Kong had tightened social-distancing curbs, with school sessions constantly suspended and classes shifting online.
“Before the pandemic, Jimmy had been a well-behaved student with good conduct and grades. But after the introduction of online lessons, he had a sudden and intense change in his emotional state,” Chan told the Post, breaking down in tears.
Prompted by the boy’s worsening self-isolation, Chan eventually also ended up with depression, plagued by severe insomnia and loss of appetite. There were times her emotional anxiety reached a breaking point and she inflicted physical punishment on her grandson, but regretted it later.
Both grandmother and grandson eventually found psychiatric help and would be referred by the boy’s school to new children’s wellness group WEMP Foundation, set up personally by Adrian Cheng Chi-kong, CEO of New World Development, amid a rising trend of young residents suffering from mental illness.
The foundation provides financial aid for young patients diagnosed with severe mental illnesses requiring urgent help, with one-on-one psychiatric, speech therapy and psychological services, as well as parenting counselling services for carers. It seeks to introduce positive parenting skills and educational activities on emotions to schools across 18 districts, with an aim to benefit 20,000 students and parents.
“Mental health for children has been a global phenomenon, and a paradigm shift that has happened for the past two or three years because of the pandemic,” Cheng said. “During the pandemic, you can see that children have been the victims of mental health … and that kids are the most vulnerable.”
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Chan, recalling the days with her grandson before both found light at the end of the tunnel, said: “He refused to talk, attend school – whether for online or physical lessons – or go out. This situation lasted two years. He kept shutting himself off for months and spent the whole day playing video games.”
With his parents divorced when he was just a toddler, Jimmy, then a Primary Five student, as well as his brother, 15, was left in the care of Chan and the boys’ 47-year-old father, a decorator.
Worried about her troubled grandson, Chan at the time resorted to every means to try to find out the cause of his distress and persuade Jimmy to go back to school, including introducing him to counselling and social work services, as well as inviting his principal and teachers to make home visits. But it was all to no avail as Jimmy was unwilling to communicate.
“It was wrong of me to use physical violence on Jimmy and I felt terrible after that. I simply questioned why other kids could lead a normal happy life but not him?” she said.
After a series of psychiatric sessions with support from Jimmy’s school in Cheung Sha Wan, the boy started to attend classes gradually earlier this year while Chan has learned to use persuasion instead of punishment to guide her grandson.
“Occasionally Jimmy still has mood swings and would skip classes. He still refuses to talk about his feelings. But as long as he can resume a normal school life and enjoy it, I am happy,” she said.
The WEMP foundation is supported by about 20 advisers from across various sectors who will share parenting skills and counselling for carers. Members of this group include top government adviser Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, former food and health secretary Dr Ko Wing-man, Archbishop for Anglican Church of Hong Kong Andrew Chan Au-ming, and Professor Nancy Ip Yuk-yu, president of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Cheng also emphasised that the foundation was his own personal initiative, created out of his own concern for the city’s mental well-being, adding that it had nothing to do with pressure from Beijing or local authorities.
“For the past 10 years, I’ve been very, very passionate about children and their mental health,” he said. “We want to help the students and alleviate their stress.”
Well-being of Hong Kong children ‘far below global levels’
In a mental health study by NGO Save the Children in September 2020 on 350 primary and 274 secondary students, as many as 39 per cent of respondents showed possible symptoms of mental health disorders. Their symptoms included loss of focus, anxiety and insomnia, with the problems strikingly worse among students and parents from underprivileged families.
The report said the mental well-being of Hong Kong’s children had been further aggravated by the social unrest of 2019 and later the Covid-19 pandemic. Amid increasing physical isolation and quarantines, the closure of schools and the loss of livelihoods, those already with mental health issues found their conditions spiralling.
Hospital Authority figures showed in the 2021-22 financial year, there were 12,245 new cases seeking psychiatric specialist outpatient services with a median wait time of 79 weeks, up from 10,751 new cases in 2018-19 with a waiting time of 82 weeks.
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Dr Phyllis Chan Kwok-ling, vice-president of Hong Kong College of Psychiatrists, who partners with the WEMP foundation for the transferral of cases, said Hong Kong badly needed more support and funding for mental health services.
“Demand for child mental health services is huge, far outstripping available resources. Waiting time for children’s mental healthcare can reach as long as two years. The situation is extremely worrying,” she warned.
“Underprivileged families are at the highest risk and the most vulnerable. If they do not have access to early medical treatments after showing depression or anxiety symptoms, their children may end up giving up school and studies.”
*Name changed to protect identity
