A child and youth organisation on Wednesday called on the government to offer more resources to shorten the waiting time for psychiatric and clinical psychological services to allow those in need to receive timely support.

The Boys' & Girls' Clubs Association of Hong Kong analysed the data of 214 students who did not show up to class during the last academic year.

A majority of them suffered from anxiety and depression.

The students were absent for almost 60 percent of the school days on average.

Even though many pupils have undergone psychiatric and clinical psychological treatment at public hospitals, Billie Lau, executive director of the association said the median waiting time of more than 70 weeks for each new case has become a drawback.

"If we can have more resources for the public services so that students can reach out easily, it would be more helpful," he said.

"Because if you wait longer, the problem will become more serious from time to time."

The group also suggested the government set up a dedicated task force to support students, on top of the existing three-tier school-based emergency mechanism that aims to assist those with suicidal thoughts.

"The dedicated team that we are suggesting is about a long-term prevention as well as intervention, especially for students who skip classes and who did not actively seek help, so that we may have a longer term intervention or a longer time for them to reach out or for us to link them to different services to support them to knit all the safety net for them," Lau said.

Assistant director Rebecca Wong, for her part, emphasised that early intervention is crucial in helping students to return to school as soon as possible, instead of only checking on the students when they are absent for seven straight days — the period that schools are required to report to the Education Bureau.