More support needed for ethnic minority children with special needs, charity says

A Hong Kong non-profit education charity, Heep Hong Society, has called for expanded government support for preschool-aged ethnic minority children with special needs. A pilot project found that 95% of participants showed improvement, but many families face language barriers, financial constraints, and cultural stigma when seeking assistance.

Currently, 968 non-Chinese-speaking children receive preschool rehabilitation services, up from 741 in the previous year. Dr Kwok Chun-chuen notes that ethnic minority families often struggle to access support due to language difficulties and lack of information. Heep Hong Society's Project Embrace provided assessments, diagnoses, and support services for 171 ethnic minority families, with 70 receiving developmental assessments.

The programme's social impact assessment showed that 95.7% of participants improved in areas like activity participation and social-emotional development. However, 87.7% of parents reported a better understanding of how to support their children, and 84.4% said they were more aware of available resources. Heep Hong Society urges authorities to allocate more resources to dedicated ethnic minority service units within Parents/Relatives Resource Centres and to increase government-funded Early Education and Training Centres and Special Child Care Centres offering multilingual services.