It is always vital to take care of the mental well-being of the youth, but the importance is even more pronounced in times of social turbulence and the long-lasting pandemic. The One Health research cluster of CityU’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences has brought experts to discuss this urgent issue on 10 December 2021, in the seminar titled “Changes and Challenges: Mental Well-being of Hong Kong Young People” and moderated by Dr Esther CHOW, Associate Professor of CityU’s Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences (SS).

Drawing on his substantial experience as a registered social worker in a range of different settings in Hong Kong, including school social work, hot-line counselling service, children and youth centre service, Dr Andrew LOW, Assistant Professor at SS, first shared his insights into the mental well-being of local youth in his talk “Resolving Parent-Adolescent Conflicts in times of Social Situations: Adolescents' voices on conflict resolution strategies and preferred parenting styles”. Next up, Dr Ricky KWAN, Assistant Professor from SS whose research interests lie primarily in the fields of mental health, workplace inclusion and mezzo-level social work practice, delivered a talk titled “Adapting to Changes in Times of Pandemic Crisis: Hong Kong Social Workers’ Challenges”.

Two speakers outside the academia were also invited to bring fresh perspectives to the audience. HSU Siu-man, Deputy Executive Director of the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, is a frequent speaker and trainer on areas such as youth emotional health, addictive problem and media education. She offered valuable views in her talk titled “Inducing Hope and Healing with All-round Wellness Initiatives”. WONG Man-wing, whose current role allows her to work with students and observe common mental health issues among the youth, brought the audience the talk “Enhancing Mental Well-being: Challenges in self-care“.

The past events of the One Health research cluster were more on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is dedicated to bringing in meaningful exchanges on diversified health topics going forward, and this first attempt has proved to be successful.