Operation Santa Claus: Hong Kong group to train ‘well-being practitioners’ to help pupils

Nearly 1,500 Hong Kong school pupils will be offered psychological counselling services on campus if they suffer from depression or anxiety under a new initiative to improve support networks by expanding the pool of counsellors.

With support from annual fundraising drive Operation Santa Claus (OSC), local charity Mind HK will launch the Improving Access to Community Therapies (iACT) project, under which psychologists will give 11 months of intensive training to graduates from universities’ psychology departments.

The training will prepare the graduates for providing therapy to 1,500 secondary school students aged between 12 and 18 years if they suffer from mild to moderate depression or anxiety.

Trainee psychiatrists or psychologists typically undergo six to 10 years of training. This long process and the recent wave of emigration meant there were not enough practitioners to serve growing needs in Hong Kong, Mind HK CEO Dr Candice Powell said.

“We know right now the youth mental health problem is not in a good shape,” said Powell, who is also a clinical psychologist and a lecturer at the University of Hong Kong.

“We want to increase the pool of people who can practice mental health [counselling].”