Skip to content

Hotline Counselling Service on Stress Management

The Civil Service Bureau has commissioned the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society to provide a new round of hotline counselling service on stress management from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025.  The service aims to help staff cope with stress from work and other personal problems.  Staff, including civil servants, Non-Civil Service Contract staff and Post-Retirement Service Contract staff, from some 60 bureaux/departments which do not have dedicated counselling service may use this hotline.

The hotline number is 4608 7622 and the scope of the hotline counselling service is as follows –

  • Telephone counselling service from 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., Monday to Friday, and from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, except public holidays.  Calls received outside the service hours will be answered by a paging service and the counsellors will call back as soon as possible.  In case of emergency, counselling service will be provided to the callers as soon as possible and in any event within 3 hours of the calls made to the counsellors.  If it is not an urgent case, the counsellors will call back on the next working day;
  • Face-to-face counselling service by the counsellors or the clinical psychologists of the service agency, if necessary (Note: Staff are required to take vacation leave or their earned time-off if they attend interviews with the counsellors during working hours.  Civil servants may apply for time-off under Civil Service Regulation 904 as a concessionary arrangement to attend counselling sessions provided by clinical psychologists under this hotline counselling service.); and
  • Where appropriate, the counsellors may assist the callers to seek other services and the cost of such services will have to be borne by the staff concerned.

Staff in need of the counselling service are encouraged to call the hotline and they are not required to disclose their names.  The counsellors will require the callers to provide some brief information (e.g. name of the department) so that the counsellors can ascertain if the callers are covered by this counselling service.  Information provided by the callers and the content of counselling will be kept in strict confidence.

A number of departments, including the Correctional Services Department, the Customs and Excise Department, the Department of Health, the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department, the Fire Services Department, the Hong Kong Police Force, the Hongkong Post, the Housing Department, the Immigration Department, the Social Welfare Department and the Transport Department, provide dedicated counselling service to help their staff cope with stress arising from work and other personal problems.