It was more than thirty years ago that I started my career as a social worker. My first job was with the Governmentʹs Social Welfare Department and my assignment was to work as a Probation Officer to serve the Juvenile Court. At that time, we were already using the term ʺyouth-at-riskʺ, though its Chinese equivalent, ʺfeizaiʺ, referred to youths whose social behaviours were not so acceptable. Since then, I have always been puzzled over what the term ʺyouth-at-riskʺ actually means, as I believe young people are often a bit wayward in their behaviour and are at risk of offending the...

From a developmental perspective, every one of us has different developmental tasks to fulfill at different stages in the life process and is prone to be at risk if the tasks are not fulfilled/satisfied. But why are young people or adolescents usually regarded as more at risk? Young people are typically perceived as immature, with low self-esteem, lack of coping ability and self-control (Dryfoos, 1990; Jessor et al., 1991; McWhirter et al., 1998). When youth-at-risk (YAR) is mentioned, it is usually associated with young people in the education system who are on the fringe of dropping out of schools (Capuzzi...

The destructive power of young people had caught the governmentʹs attention by the mid-1960s after a series of youth riots, which demonstrated how destabilizing a force youth power could be on society (Commission of Inquiry, 1967). By the late 1970s, the delinquent behaviours of young people had become so alarming that it led to the formation of a working group by the government to investigate the problem (Working Group on Juvenile Crime, 1981). In fact, the problem of juvenile delinquency in Hong Kong has been a big concern for the government, with the latest official commissioned research on the phenomenon...

Youth gangs are usually of a neighbourhood basis (Cartwright, 1975; Cooper, 1967; Klein, 1971; Lo, 1992; Spergel, 1995). They are identified as having ʺanti-socialʺ, ʺdelinquentʺ, ʺviolentʺ and ʺat-riskʺ natures (Cartwright, 1975; Feldman, 1985; Goldstein and Huff, 1993; Klein, 1971, Lee et al., 1996/97 Spergel, 1965). They exist well before detach workers intend to intervene in their daily activities. Most youth gangs have already developed into certain group stages and detach workers have to spend some time to explore and understand that stage before they can intervene. Also, most of these groups will still exist after the workers end their services...

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the drug/substance use scene in Hong Kong has been changing drastically, particularly with regards to young people. With the imported rave/disco and dance culture from the West, the number of young people taking Ecstasy (XTC) and Ketamine (K) has risen in the last few years. Taking Ecstasy has become just another weekend leisure activity for some young people and young adults. Without doubt, they do not fit into the stereotype of a traditional drug user taking heroin or cocaine.

Different social service agencies have put their focus on seeking an understanding about the...

Bullying among school pupils is not a new phenomenon. The fact that some pupils are persistently rejected, harassed and physically hurt by other pupils has been described in mass media as well as in literature. In Hong Kong, there has been a growing concern about the violent and bullying behaviour of students in the media.¹ In 1997, a boy was tortured to death and the corpse was burned as a result of group bullying.² In 1999, a teenage girl was sexually harassed by a group of her classmates on the stairs of a housing estate near the school.³ Recently, a...

What is diversion? How does it work? Does it work? Although these questions seem simple enough, the answers are more complex and must be understood in particular historical, cultural and social contexts. At a broad level, diversion is a strategy designed to divert offenders from the criminal justice system. In some instances, it is used as a pre-arrest mechanism to keep offenders from officially entering the criminal justice system such that at the time of detection, the police do not pursue an arrest. Offenders can also be diverted after arrest, at the pretrial stage, with the charges being ʺbound overʺ,...

The issue of youth-at-risk (YAR) has raised much concern from the public and the government. There is an outcry for more allocation of resources for services to the YAR, and more funding should be pooled into related services. The recent expansion of Community Support Service Schemes (CSSSs), District Outreaching Service, Young Night Drifters Service etc are some typical examples (SWD, 2002b).

Project Phoenix — Community Support Service Scheme (PP-CSSS) is one of the existing service projects for YAR. The term ʺyouth-at-riskʺ has taken on some broad connotations but in the current context, it refers to those juveniles aged from 10...

There are various kinds of services available to the at-risk youth who exhibit different degrees of risky behaviours. Among the services, Outreaching Social Work (OSW) has the longest history of development since June 1979. In this paper, the first focus will be on discussing the relationship between service effectiveness and service improvement in the case of OSW service as this type of youth service is designed specifically for youth-at-risk (YAR).

An evaluation of the history and advantages of OSW service evaluation in Hong Kong will then be pointed out. There will also be an analysis of why some youth workers...

Youth has long been a concern of the government and the social work profession in Hong Kong, both in terms of care and control. Despite the recent re-organization and restructuring of service at the district level, youth work remains one of the largest service areas in the terrain of social work in the SAR. Notwithstanding this, however, the history of youth work in Hong Kong was quite problematic , as young people were not guided properly, and were often construed as potentially destructive during their transition to adulthood. Youth identity as a target of state control and intervention has thus...

Different chapters have discussed the various approaches to working with YAR who have different problems. The approaches employed to work with YAR, to a large extent, depend on our understanding of the causes of their problems. There can be various perspectives on understanding youth problems/deviance. These include the physiological perspective (Glueck and Glueck, 1956; National Institute of Mental Health, 1970; Philpott, 1978), psychological perspective (Gerard, 1970; Hewitt and Jenkins, 1946; Inhelder and Piaget, 1958; Kohlberg, 1963; Piaget, 1948; Schoenfeld, 1975) and sociological perspective (Burgress, 1926; Cloward and Ohlin, 1960; Cohen, 1955; Durkheim, 1933; Merton, 1968; Morris, 1957; Park et al,...