South Korea’s gender equality and family ministry is expanding youth welfare services by integrating AI tools to identify at-risk teenagers earlier, including those with borderline intellectual functioning, aiming to close policy gaps and provide more proactive support.
South Korea’s gender equality and family ministry is preparing to fold adolescents with borderline intellectual functioning into its crisis youth support system, widening help for young people who fall short of the threshold for an intellectual disability but still struggle in school and everyday life, according to eDaily and official government materials. The move is designed to close a policy gap that has left many of these teenagers without early diagnosis, developmental support or a clear route to services.
The ministry said the new approach will go beyond waiting for young people to ask for help. It plans to build an artificial intelligence-based detection system alongside the existing youth counselling platform so that warning signs such as self-harm, suicidal thoughts, social withdrawal and isolation can be identified earlier. Officials say the aim is to spot those at risk before a crisis deepens and to link them more quickly with counselling and case management.
Support for teenagers living away from home or already at risk of offending is also set to expand. The ministry plans to add independent living support centres, recovery support facilities and more specialist night-time protection staff, while increasing the number of workers at support centres for out-of-school youth. The broader effort is meant to strengthen protection, rehabilitation and return-to-society services for vulnerable adolescents.
Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Minister Won Min-kyung said the policy discussions were intended to reflect young people’s concerns more accurately and produce measures that the public can feel in practice. The latest proposal signals a more proactive model of youth welfare in which government agencies try to find struggling teenagers earlier, rather than waiting for them to come forward.
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