Interview December 2020∣Youth Hong Kong
Motivation to change •A totally new approach has been developed to assess youth at risk in Hong Kong.
• 一套專為本港高風險青年而設的評估工具及輔導手 法在過去兩年正在發展。
• Prof Daniel Wong joined forces with HKFYG in a project that may prevent them getting into trouble.
• 黃富強教授跟香港青年協會合作，透過計劃防止高 風險青年犯罪。
•Participants learned to recognize triggers for delinquency and other unsocial behavior and control their emotions.
• 參加計劃的高風險青年學習如何辨識自己犯罪的因 素，並嘗試透過改善其行為及控制情緒來降低犯罪 的機會。
Frontline social workers regularly make contact with young people who hang out late at night and risk getting into trouble. If they are on the margins of society, they often have nothing much to do but get mixed up with gangs and then get trapped in a web of violence, drugs and theft. They bend all too easily to peer pressure and lose sight of right and wrong.
their emotions and develop coping strategies. A few years ago, the Federation’s workers consulted Prof Daniel Wong, an expert in the field of CBT, on how to refine their counselling approach and since then, young people at risk who are supported by HKFYG have been gaining the motivation to change.
What can be done to help them find a better way? One approach is cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). It is used with people who have various problems and teaches them to challenge their own negativity, control
14
“When the social workers at HKFYG told me about cases they work with and when I saw that many young delinquents in Hong Kong had emotional health issues, it all suddenly clicked,” Prof Wong recalls. “Seeing the consistent connection between delinquency and dysfunctional ways of thinking was the start of a new study which looked at the interaction of these factors in Hong Kong youth.”
