Overview December 2020∣Youth Hong Kong
Understanding vulnerability
• Many factors affect risk levels in youth depending on personal traits, emotions and backgrounds.
• 青年犯罪違規的風險水平受不同因素影響，與青年的 個人特點、情緒，以及背景等息息相關。
• Some vulnerabilities can be short-lived but when they become serious, timely responses are needed.
• 有些危機是短暫性的，但如果這些風險持續出現且變 得嚴重，青年就需要得到適時協助。
• In all cases, building resilience is essential to long term wellbeing and psychological health.
• 對大部分個案來說，協助他們建立良好抗逆力有助長 遠的身心發展及心理健康。
Vulnerability in youth has many faces and many causes. It would be misleading to single out any specific cause in any individual. However, it is possible to pinpoint a number of regularly occurring significant risk factors. When these occur in combination, vulnerability to physical or psychological harm is greater.
neurodevelopmental changes that make adolescence a period of both vulnerability and opportunity. On the plus side, young people have the flexibility needed to adapt easily to changing sociocultural demands and to respond to counselling and therapy. On the minus side, large-scale epidemiological studies have reported that the median age of onset for a range of mental health problems is during adolescence and according to the World Health Organisation, the suicide rate is highest in 20-39 year-olds and the second leading cause of deaths in 15-29 year-olds.
Although adolescence is sometimes characterised as a risk factor in itself, something to be managed or controlled, current thinking highlights a series of
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