TITLE:
Youth Mentoring Programs of Hong Kong SAR (China) and Overseas: A Bibliographic Review
AUTHORS:
Timothy Ka Chun Hassan
KEYWORDS:
Youth Mentoring, Hong Kong SAR (China), Comparative Analysis, Youth Development, Mentorship
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.13 No.10,
October
20,
2025
ABSTRACT: Youth mentoring programs have proliferated in Hong Kong SAR (China) and internationally as tools for positive youth development. This paper provides a bibliographic review comparing youth mentoring models in Hong Kong SAR (China) with those in the United States and United Kingdom. We trace the evolution of mentoring practices, program formats, policy support, target pop-ulations, and challenges across these contexts. In the U.S., formal youth men-toring began in the early 20th century and expanded through waves addressing juvenile delinquency, corporate glass ceilings, and at-risk youth, with wide-spread volunteerism and some government initiatives. The U.K. embraced mentoring in the 1990s via school-business partnerships and robust govern-ment-backed networks to tackle educational and social issues. Hong Kong SAR (China)’s mentoring efforts are more recent, emerging in the 2000s through NGO programs, university schemes, and government-funded initia-tives, and have rapidly gained public traction. Despite shared goals of youth empowerment and notable similarities, differences are evident in historical timing, scale, and structural support. Hong Kong SAR (China)’s programs ben-efit from learning experiences overseas but face unique cultural and develop-mental considerations. The review highlights challenges such as ensuring men-tor quality, sustaining mentor-mentee engagement, and adapting programs to local contexts. Notably, research on Hong Kong SAR (China)’s mentoring re-mains limited (a relatively new concept), indicating a gap in scholarship. The paper discusses implications for policy and practice, and recommends future studies to address identified research gaps and further refine mentoring models for diverse youth populations.