Widen mental health support for Hong Kong youth beyond high-risk cases, adviser urges
Exco’s Dr Lam Ching-choi warns high-risk tags don’t always identify children in need, while tycoon Adrian Cheng says young philanthropists eager to help
“We have seen worrying cases of children who showed no stressors in their real lives – they came from middle-class families, performed well academically, were not bullied and had good relationships with classmates – yet still took their own lives,” Lam said.
“Why? This is often because they experienced the opposite in their digital world,” he added, pointing to the impact of social media where youngsters were exposed to harmful content and online bullying.
Lam called for prevention and support measures to be expanded to all young people, rather than targeting only those identified as high risk.
“We do not have children who are at zero risk of suicide today,” he said. “The pattern we see is that even children without these high-risk tags may commit suicide.”