Follow-up on Views Gathered at the Stakeholder Engagement Session on "Positive Parenting and Family Bonding"

On parenting and family relationship

Education Bureau (EDB) has all along been supporting home-school co-operation, forging home-school partnership and promoting parent education. To systematically equip parents with essential knowledge and skills in supporting children’s development and learning, nurturing their proper values and positive attitude, as well as fostering their whole-person development, EDB rolled out the Curriculum Frameworks on Parent Education for kindergartens, primary schools and secondary schools in 2021, 2022 and 2024 respectively (collectively named the “Curriculum Frameworks”). The Curriculum Frameworks encompass four core strands, including the “Promotion of Healthy, Happy and Balanced Development of Children/Adolescents”. Contents, such as the roles of parents, promotion of parents’ physical and psychological well-being, are covered.
EDB developed parent education resources that aligned with the Curriculum Frameworks. Topics include fostering positive parent-child relationships, effective communication strategies and parenting techniques for different developmental stages. The Parent Education Resource Package for Secondary Schools will be launched in the 2025/26 school year.
EDB has been implementing the territory-wide Positive Parent Campaign since June 2020 to promote parent education through extensive and diversified channels. In 2025, taking forward the 4Rs Mental Health Charter, parents and children are encouraged to recognise the importance of maintaining good interpersonal relationships and building resilience, thereby enhancing their mental health through a series of activities under the “Family Resilience Series”. In addition, to cater for the needs of parents with different backgrounds and needs, EDB will launch the Workplace Parent Education Programmes in 2026.
EDB has been making use of the one-stop parent education website “Smart Parent Net” (https://www.parent.edu.hk/), and its social media channels to facilitate parents’ access to relevant information, education resources and support. There is also a “Parent Education Activity Information Hub” section in the website providing information on parent education courses and activities organised by other government departments and local post-secondary institutions.
EDB has been organising territory-wide and district-based parent education courses, talks and activities on enhancing parents’ understanding of the development needs of children and providing parents with knowledge as well as skills in nurturing children, fostering communication and building parent-child relationship. Examples include parent-child talks, workshops, competition series, as well as parent-child film appreciation and sharing sessions.
The 65 Integrated Family Service Centres and two Integrated Services Centres operated by Social Welfare Department (SWD) or non-government organisations (NGOs) provide a range of preventive and remedial services through casework counselling, consultation, referrals, groups and programmes, etc. to support and strengthen individuals and families, including those with problems of parenting and family relationships.
To identify pre-primary children and their families with welfare needs early and offer suitable assistance to them, the 50 district-based social work teams operated by NGOs, provide counselling, parenting education groups, talks and thematic activities, etc., for parents of pre-primary children.

On support service to parents

The Government launched the School-based After School Care Service Scheme (the Scheme) in the 2023/24 school year, with a view to allowing primary students in need to stay after school to receive care and learning support in a safe and familiar environment, and enabling parents to take up jobs. Both dual-income families and single-parent families are benefitted. In the 2025/26 school year, the Scheme is further enhanced by uncapping the number of service places.
After School Care Programmes (ASCP), operated by NGOs on a self-financing and fee-charging basis, provide care and support services for primary school children, including homework guidance, parental guidance and education, skill learning and social activities, etc. SWD provides financial assistance for low-income families in need through the Fee-waiving Subsidy Scheme (FWSS) by waiving and reducing the fees of ASCP for their children. The fee-waiving places under FWSS is reviewed on a regular basis in consultation with the NGO operators, having regard to the actual service utilisation. The NGOs concerned are supported to redeploy the service places flexibly to benefit more service users in case of need.
SWD also subsidised the After School Care programme for Pre-primary children. The services provided by NGOs in 28 centres, include personal care, homework guidance and skill learning to meet the care and developmental needs of the children.
SWD subvents NGOs to operate 139 Integrated Children and Youth Services Centres across 18 districts to provide social work intervention to children and youth aged 6 to 24 through the delivery of preventive, developmental, supportive and remedial services tailored to meet their multifarious needs. The annual membership fee is $29 while the enrolment fees of individual programmes are subject to the nature of activities and the costs incurred with due consideration of the affordability of service users.