The government-appointed Youth Affairs Committee will set up a task force on young people’s mental health and well-being with a view to gradually launching services to meet the needs of young people, based on the feedback collected, but Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) Non-Tertiary Education Department Chief Choi Man Chi underlined on Friday that “this is not due to a sudden increase in the physical and mental health-related condition of young people”.
The committee held on Friday its third plenary meeting for this year, during which, according to a DSEDJ statement, Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Elsie Ao Ieong U, who chairs the committee, said that the government has been attaching great importance to the physical and mental health of young people and has been working at different levels, including the setting-up of the “Walking with Love – Caring for the Mental and Physical Health of Young People” programme in 2021, as well as the establishment of a mechanism for identifying high-risk students, in addition to the formation of a “Working Group on Physical and Mental Health on Campus” in local schools.
The statement quoted Ao Ieong as highlighting the government’s action on mental health, adding that in the blueprint for a Healthy Macau announced by the government earlier this year, three specific objectives and six assessment indicators on mental health have been set to enhance the mental health of Macau residents at the policy, environmental and behavioural levels.
The statement noted that the closed-door meeting reported and made a decision on the membership of the task force, “in the hope that through the task force, members of the Youth Affairs Committee can pool their strengths together to explore the needs and aspirations of young people at different stages of their development and to provide them with advice, thereby taking care of their physical and mental health development in various aspects”.
The task force on mental health and well-being of young people will consist of nine members of the Youth Affairs Committee, Choi told reporters during a post-meeting press conference, adding that the government has always attached great importance to the physical and mental health of young students, and consistently optimised the joint prevention, control and action mechanism through the establishment of an inter-departmental collaboration mechanism, as well as by linking up educational organisations and community forces: “Youth-related work has never diminished. At present, the government hopes to collect views through the establishment of a standing task force and expand the scope of receiving feedback from young people, with a view to gradually introducing services that meet the needs of young people…… Young people know that being listened to and cared about is an added support for them”.
Choi underlined that there has been no significant change in the physical and mental health of young students in Macau, but more could be done in prevention to build a tighter safety net. According to the statement, Choi urged the whole community to be the gatekeepers of health and to work together to protect the physical and mental health of young students.
Meanwhile, according to Choi, the bureau has launched in this school year for the first time the “Mental Health Education Courseware”, which consists of eight themes, mainly focusing on emotions, peer relationships and life education, so as to enable students to pay more attention to recognise and handle their emotions correctly. Teaching staff need to receive training related to the courseware, she concluded.
The Education and Youth Development Bureau’s (DSEDJ) Youth Development Division Acting Chief Chio Pou Wai (from left to right), Non-Tertiary Education Department Chief Choi Man Chi, and Io Iok Fong, the functional head of the DSEDJ Youth Department, host a post-press briefing after Friday’s closed-door plenary meeting of the government-appointed Youth Affairs Committee at the bureau. – Photo: DSEDJ
