Relieve Daily Stress and Advocate Family Mental Health

During the past year, as the pandemic receded, most activities under our service were conducted in person, harnessing the power of social support. Some online activities, meanwhile, were retained to suit the convenience of individuals to carry on with learning how to relieve personal stress and uplift mental health. In 2022-2023, 13 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) groups were conducted in our six Integrated Family Service Centres (IFSCs), aiding participants to identify their source of stress, distinguish functional thoughts from dysfunctional ones, acquire effective ways of thinking to handle disturbing emotions, and strengthen problem-solving abilities. Our group activities recorded an average attendance of over 85%. Regarding our Mental Health Enhancement Programme (MHEP), diversified groups and activities were continuously pursued in divergent centres and online platforms with the purpose to help participants to relieve their daily stress and to advocate family mental health. Our major community educational campaigns were “Mindfulness and Music Soul Navigation Workshop” and “Declutter: Art Reshapes the Soul”. Other activities included stress reduction with black paper pastels, non-violent seminars, clinical psychologist talk, Zentangle painting with Pastel Nagomi Art, and OH CARD mindfulness journey. Our group activities covered “Dancing with family-of-origin” and “SoulCollege® with mindfulness”. All of the participants were satisfied with our arrangement. Nearly all of them reported that our activities helped them reduce stress, improve social skills, and expand social support network.

Protect Children and Shelter Their Growth

A series of severe child abuse cases happened in Hong Kong in recent years have aroused enormous concern on child protection among various social sectors. To address this, the government is ramping up legislation on child protection by enforcing mandatory reporting for suspected child abuse cases. The Society always cares about families' needs and children's wellbeing. In response to the need of protecting children, the “Child Protection in Action” Project was introduced in October, 2022. Early identification and early intervention strategies were adopted alongside with parents, school professionals and interested parties in order to promote harmonious families, create a children-loving community, and provide a shelter for children to grow up healthily. A total of ten teacher training, 55 parent groups / workshops, 24 child groups / workshops, 18 parent-child groups / workshops and eight roadshows have been held since the start of the project. It has achieved satisfactory results and received positive feedbacks from participants on all activities under the project.

Uncover Potentials and Supporting Children Confronting Adversity

With the sponsorship from BOC Group Life Assurance Company Limited, “KIDS” Our Love Project has been initiated since October, 2019. Due to the pandemic, it has been suspended for a year until the end of September, 2023. October, 2022 therefore marks the third year of the project. The project aims at subsidising kindergarten or primary school students from underprivileged households who are receiving casework services from the IFSCs. Students were eligible for one of the services: “Children's Dream Help” which provided cash subsidies to enable participants to enroll in non-academic interest classes to help them develop their potentials; or individual counselling service / therapeutic groups, which provided Child-centred Play Therapy counselling services or related therapeutic group services to children facing family adversities, such as death of family members, domestic violence or divorce of parents, with the help of professional assessment and recommendations by social workers to identify the children in need. Since the commencement of the project, the response has been overwhelming. During the third project year, we subsidised around 140 children to join interest classes to grow their various potentials through “Children's Dream Help”. We also rendered 120 play sessions for 12 children and two eight-session therapeutic groups for 16 children. Participants and families who went through the project reported that the service was effective in resolving children’s emotional and behavioral difficulties.

Support Families in Crisis to Go Through Challenges and Difficulties

Confronting miscellaneous social changes nowadays families are regularly prone to sudden crisis. Regarding this, the Society is committed to offering all-round support for families to overcome hardship together. Chow Tai Fook Charity Foundation has been supporting the Society to operate “Family in Crisis Support Project” since 2017, which aims at providing one- stop comprehensive counselling and financial support to families that suffer loss or sickness of their breadwinners. In 2022-2023, the project supported 61 new family cases. A total of HK$939,876 of financial fund has been granted to families in need of it to sail through their living crisis. Owning to the backing of Chow Tai Fook Charity Foundation, the project expanded its service scope to cover the whole Hong Kong society. We hope to assist more families in crisis to handle challenges and start a new life.

Promote Zero Violence and Harmonious Families

With the support from Social Welfare Department, we have launched the project “Peace Campus - Support Programme for Enhancing Peaceable Relationship” since October, 2018, providing supportive services for families to handle intimate partner violence and children witnessing domestic violence and at the same time promoting public awareness. This year, working with different social service units and schools, we hosted courses on handling intimate partner violence and children for 46 and 53 participants respectively. Four family cohesion programmes, 17 community talks and 23 service promotions were also launched. The project has achieved satisfactory result. Participants have uplifted their awareness and skills for dealing with conflicts through non-violent means and children have managed to learn ways to handle negative emotions and family conflict. The relationship and communication among their families have also been improved.