What makes youth vulnerable?

Understanding vulnerability

Many factors affect risk levels in youth depending on personal traits, emotions and backgrounds.

Some vulnerabilities can be short-lived but when they become serious, timely responses are needed.

In all cases, building resilience is essential to long term wellbeing and psychological health.

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。

• 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。

• 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.

Although adolescence is sometimes characterised as a risk factor in itself, something to be managed or controlled, current thinking highlights a series of 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.

It’s true that young people do not always act in ways that serve their own best interests, sometimes they underestimate the risks of particular actions or behaviour. In other cases, their perception of risk is larger than the reality. Yet, again, some young people take risks because they feel vulnerable to a point approaching hopelessness and cannot find any other solution to their predicament. In any of these circumstances, perceptions can prompt them to make poor – if not fatal – decisions. Evidently, the adolescent years play a crucial role in shaping outcomes that have wide-ranging and longlasting impact. Importantly, a number of external and intrinsic factors act to shape the course of adolescent development, whether that development is typical or atypical. Abuse and neglect during development are also associated with alterations in brain structure and this may increase the risk of psychiatric illnesses such as depression and borderline personality disorder.

What can be done to support adolescents and respond to their needs? One essential is awareness of the physical, economic, social and political factors that determine levels of youth vulnerability and the extent of their capacity to resist, cope and recover. Researchers have repeatedly found that certain stressors during childhood and adolescence create challenges for healthy development into adulthood. They include physical abuse and sexual violence. Living at home with a family that is struggling – whether with substance use, mental health problems or inadequate resources - is another strong indicator for vulnerability.

Early identification of youth who risk becoming delinquent or committing an offence is crucial and it depends on accurate assessment. Not only does this allow the possibility of protecting them, it also reduces the huge costs of mental health problems and mental illness. Counteracting vulnerability also requires positive, supportive relationships. Key determinants in the work of building youth’s capacity to withstand and cope with risk are their relationships with family and friends. But is prevention of risk and its outcomes real possibility? This is one of the questions that this issue explores.

Stories of juvenile delinquents learning self-awareness and self-control, stories of attempted suicide and recovery and of drug addicts on the road to rehabilitation: these make for positive reading. Reducing the impact of vulnerabilities, through mitigation, prediction and preparedness is important. Even more so is tackling the root causes of vulnerability and recidivism, such as poverty, discrimination and the forms of inequality that lead to inadequate access to resources and livelihoods.

Mental health, mental illness and mental health disorders

The terms “mental illness” and “mental health disorder” are often used interchangeably but the terms are sometimes used ambiguously. Mental health is part of all-round wellbeing. Mental illnesses are defined as changes causing distress or impaired functioning that do not encompass a person’s overall state of mind. For example, if a person is pessimistic and feeling sad, it does not mean they are suffering from a depressive disorder. Positive mental health, however, can increase certain protective factors such as resiliency and selfesteem which can mitigate the harms of mental illness. This is why mental health promotion is important when considering the connection between mental illness and juvenile delinquents or young offenders.

Source publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2017-h01-cp/index-en.aspx The HKFYG Youth Crime Prevention Centre offers assessment and treatment to youth at risk. Its outreach professionals help thousands of young people aged 10 to 24. Standardized, locally adapted tools for culturally appropriate screening and assessment have been developed by HKFYG in partnership with the University of Hong Kong. Counsellors can then identify at-risk youth quickly, provide guidance and positive experiences that reduce vulnerability and help young people learn to manage their emotions.

E-mail: ycpc@hkfyg.org.hk

Tel: (852) 8100 9669

Web: ycpc.hkfyg.org.hk/

Note See Youth Hong Kong September 2012, Vol 4 (3) for more on detention centres, an alternative to imprisonment for male offenders aged 14 to 24. The emphasis is on hard physical labour and discipline with a “short sharp shock” intended to prevent re-offending again. Detention centre orders are available only for first offenders.