Strategies to Help At-risk Youths

Mr Speaker, Sir, at-risk youths may exhibit different attributes, such as truancy, anti-social behaviour and juvenile delinquency. They may be exposed to situational risks, such as broken families, undesirable company or drop out from school. It is not possible to provide a single definitive figure on the number of at-risk youths. We will have to monitor different indicators to have a sense of the situation. For example, the percentage of the Primary 1 cohort who did not complete Secondary school is 0.9% in 2011. The number of juvenile delinquents arrested in 2011 was 1,488.

The National Committee on Youth Guidance and Rehabilitation (NYGR) oversees our national plan on at-risk youths. It is supported by the Central Youth Guidance Office (CYGO), an inter-Ministry set-up.

We agree on the need to work on addressing root causes of vulnerability and upstream issues, instead of focusing only on youth delinquency and crime. And, indeed, that is what the various agencies have been working on. The national plan is thus focused on a co-ordinated approach among key Government agencies and community organisations, not just on rehabilitation efforts but also on prevention and early intervention initiatives.

Sir, I thank the Acting Minister for his reply. While I appreciate that it is hard to pin down the precise numbers, would the Acting Minister enlighten us on the sort of numbers that his Ministry is working on? There must be some planning parameter.

Secondly, with regard to youths-at-risk, one of the challenges is that such youths tend to be highly mobile. So, it is not like you can go to a particular spot and engage them on a regular basis. Mobility is one key attribute of such youths. How does the Ministry plan to reach out to these youths who essentially do not really want to seek engagement or are not receptive to engagement?

I have one last concern. While part of the whole arsenal of action, whether policing could be used as a last resort because that will actually make the youths-at-risk less willing to engage with the VWOs who seek to work with them.

Sir, in reference to the planning parameters, there are various groups of at-risk youths that we can take a look at. For example, those who drop out from schools or those who are exhibiting problems with their academic progress in schools. There are people who hang out at various joints. All these are places where we look out for the youths-at-risk and we try to engage them as far as possible.

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On the second point, the Member is, indeed, correct that the youths are mobile. They have different sorts of activities that may be slightly different from the conventional youths. Having said that, there are also opportunities for us to engage them on the platforms that they actually like. For example, some of them may drop out from schools and they may like soccer. The Police has a scheme that encourages them – it is called the Delta League – to come together. I must say that Delta League is not just for at-risk youths, it is also for other youths to come together as well, because we do not want to brand people as being at-risk. Whoever needs help, we try to engage them in activities that will appeal to them. For example, soccer is one opportunity and, through it, some of these youths are also brought into community service action plans with the community leaders, so that they not only have the opportunity to be given guidance but also have access to mentors who can work with them on a much more preventive basis, than just to do the policing action, as the Member had mentioned.

And, indeed, we agree with the Member that policing will be the last resort. We very much like to invest in upstream efforts. Some of these efforts have paid off and, if we look at the policing figures, they have slowly, gradually declined over the years, in terms of the number of people who are arrested for youth crimes. This is perhaps one small sign that the upstream efforts are paying off.

Having said that, we should never be complacent. We should continue to see how else we can work on upstream measures to better engage these youths.

I thank the Acting Minister for his response. Just two very quick supplementary questions – one, if the Acting Minister would be able to provide a quick update on the success or non-success of the pilot programmes, such as Youth Goal and Streetwise. And if the Acting Minister has any statistics on the number of children who have been referred to the children care court in the past year for parents who are filing for their kids being beyond parental control.

Sir, on the first question – the Youth of Go! Programme (YGP) aims to engage youths in meaningful activities and help them to develop problem solving and coping skills to steer them away from crime. Unfortunately, I do not have the statistics that the Member requires at this point in time but I will be happy to provide him with the statistics should he need them.

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