For low-cost mental health support in Hong Kong, Mind HK’s free well-being checks are a good start, to help ‘make sense’ of your feelings
- Mind HK offers an Emotional Wellbeing Check-in – 45 minutes with a well-being professional who listens and lays out steps to get necessary mental health support
- Amid a shortage of accessible support in Hong Kong, the charity aims to ‘validate’ people’s struggles and help them understand their emotional well-being status
Eddie began noticing that something wasn’t quite right six years ago. When boarding public transport or entering a lift his hands would shake and he would find it hard to breathe. He ignored the signals his body was sending him and laughed it off with his friends.
“If I’d have got help when I first noticed my symptoms, I might not have got to the point of having panic attacks,” he says.
Seeking help early sounds like sensible advice, but many people don’t know how to get started or where to go, and may even be questioning whether what they are experiencing is serious enough to bother anyone with it.
Consider this: in 2013, one in seven Hong Kong residents was experiencing a common mental health disorder; today that figure is one in six. And fewer than 30 per cent of people with a mental health condition receive support. If this is something you or a loved one is experiencing, you are not alone.
The good news is that Mind HK has stepped up with a solution. Launched this January, its Emotional Wellbeing Check-in offers a one-time 45-minute conversation with a well-being practitioner to help people understand their current emotional well-being status and needs.
“We want to help people make sense of what they are going through, to hear their feelings and validate what they are going through. We want to bridge the gap between not having a clue about what’s going on to having a level of understanding to be able to seek some level of support,” says clinical psychologist Dr Jeffy Ho, a Mind HK clinical adviser.
The well-being check-ins are confidential and offered in English, Cantonese and Mandarin. Applications for them can be made online, and if you meet the eligibility criteria, Mind HK will respond within two weeks.
The lengthy waiting times in the public healthcare system, the high cost of private therapy and shortage of accessible professionals are the key obstacles to seeking mental health support.
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“Prevention is always better than intervention, that’s one of Mind HK’s core philosophies,” Ho says.
Born in China, Ho moved to Hong Kong aged eight and later studied in the United Kingdom. He spent six years working for the UK’s National Health Service as a counsellor and then as a clinical psychologist, and returned to Hong Kong in May 2023.
The UK is a pioneer of the “stepped care” model for mental health, which aims to provide the most effective, least resource-intensive treatment. With this approach, a client only “steps up” to more intensive or specialist services if it is considered the right thing to do clinically.
We are providing the safe space with a practitioner who is trained to pick up signs … and point to affordable resources
Mind HK’s 2023 policy recommendations for the Hong Kong government, which were released in October 2023, included integrating low-intensity mental health services into a stepped-care model within the public healthcare system.
The non-governmental organisation also recommended low-intensity services such as guided self-help and psychoeducation be delivered by a wider range of trained professionals, including well-being practitioners.
The Emotional Wellbeing Check-in is a first step towards mental well-being. The well-being practitioners will not make a diagnosis – that is not what this service is about – but they will listen and lay out next steps, if appropriate.
In many cases, this will involve pointing people towards community resources that they might not be aware of, where support is available either free of charge or at reduced cost.
This is just the sort of programme that would have helped Eddie if it had been available in 2018, Ho says.
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“It’s for people who might not know what is going on. Something might not feel quite right, but because of stigma or other reasons, they may not feel comfortable to ask, so they have no way to verify and learn what they are up against,” Ho adds.
“We are providing the safe space with a practitioner who is trained to pick up signs, share information in a non-judgmental way and point to affordable resources.”
There is no end date for the programme. Mind HK will gather data and if it is successful will consider establishing it as a model that could be self-sustainable and help to fill the gap in Hong Kong’s mental health service needs.
You can apply for a Mind HK Emotional Wellbeing Check at: https://esurvey.psy.cuhk.edu.hk/jfe/form/SV_b7oxBLZrWMcZqtg.
Low-cost or free counselling services in Hong Kong
English and other languages
The Zubin Foundation offers free one-to-one counselling services in English, Hindi, Urdu, and Nepali for members of ethnic-minority communities.
Bilingual services
St John’s Cathedral Counselling Service is a non-profit organisation that has been providing professional counselling and psychotherapy services to the community for 40 years.
Resources Counselling is a non-denominational, multicultural centre offering professional mental health services such as counselling for individuals, couples and families.
resourcecounselling.org. Tel: 2523 8979. WhatsApp: 6489 4824
Jabez Counseling Services Centre is a non-profit organisation providing free or low-cost psychological counselling services to low-income people in need.
jabezcounseling.org.hk. Tel: 2790 7123 / 9680 0943
Methodist Centre Counselling Service offers assessment and treatment from experienced psychologists and counsellors for clients of all ages with emotional and behavioural issues.
methodist-centre.com/cies/tc/counseling
Tel: 2520 4933 / 9601 7781
