Christian Service News
Issue 58 (January 2008)
Newsflash
Outstanding Results at 2007 Best Practice Awards
The 2007 Best Practice Awards in Social Welfare were organized by the Hong Kong Council of Social Service to arouse more recognition of good practice by the sector, promote public awareness of the contribution of the welfare sector and enhance cross-service professional exchange and sharing of experiences. Enthusiastic response from the sector was received with 83 entries from 31 agencies in 2007. Award presentation cum seminar took place on 17 December 2007.
The theme for the year was "Strengthen Family Support, Enhance Family Functioning" and HKCS achieved outstanding results in this event. 'Building Power' was the thematic winner while ' Let's Walk' was the winner in the non-thematic category. Aside from that, 'Breaking the Cycle of Abuse', 'Children's Creative Arts' and 'On-line New Page Project' all won Outstanding Awards.
Building Power
This community service was a first time joint venture between HKCS and the Hong Kong Institute of Architects. It was sponsored by Pricerite and 3C Digital, and also received funding from the Partnership for the Disadvantaged and the Hong Kong Institute of Architects' Young Architects Project Fund 2005. The plan was in operation for 9 months (9/2005-5/2006).
18 volunteer teams participated to provide professional home improvement to 62 low-income and government assisted families. There was professional as well as volunteer support. The main aim of the process was to enhance family unity and strengthen the community's network.
The success of this plan relied on accurate assessment of needs, total commitment of the collaborators, and the ability for the potential strength of the receiving families to be released. These enabled the plan to generate momentum so that every one of the participants would be encouraged on a continual basis.
Breaking the Cycle of Abuse
This plan targeted the special needs of drug abuse pregnant women. A team of professionals consisting of social workers, nurses and special child social workers was formed to provide a one-stop service. The team actively sought out contact points of drug abuse pregnant women so as to service them. They also cooperated with hospitals, Mother & Child Health Centres, Family Service Centres, Drug Abuse Clinics and Mesatoin Centres to provide a suitable network for these pregnant women.
Not only was the plan a success in helping drug abuse pregnant women change, but it also provided many kinds of training for various professions. It had been interviewed by the media and received favourable response from the community.
Children's Creative Art
This plan aimed to provide equal opportunity to children (2-6 year old) from different family backgrounds to be nurtured in the area of art and citizenship. The plan stimulated creativity and gradually built up children's compassion towards people, things and society, so that these qualities could be incorporated into the home life. The plan introduced support from the artists and the commercial sector in order to fully develop the children's potential. The children's art exhibitions, book publishing and comments collected from the events all proved that children do possess the ability to care about their society, their environment and love their neighbours. They exhibited good citizenship qualities and won deep recognition from parents and the general public.
Let's Walk
This plan was sensitive enough to detect "non-engagement" as a new social problem, and recognized the unique needs of youths who kept themselves at home all the time. Hong Kong's very first "Invisible Hunter" team was set up in October 2004. Armed with brand new service skills, these special social workers provided door-to-door counseling and training to non-engaged youths.
The team came up with a set of effective intervention methods based on "interests" to help non-engaged youths re-enter society. It opened up an alternative way in the field of social work to ignite the youth's motivation and provided a one-stop "from home to re-entering society" service. On top of this, the "Youth Sharing Group" we set up successfully aroused local and overseas concern over the special needs of these youths. We also consolidated and shared our experience by conducting discussions, workshops and writing articles.
On-line New Page Project
This plan built the structure for the "Path to Internet Addiction" (COLA Model) and used Motivational Interviewing as the main counseling strategy. The "Internet Addiction" measuring device compiled by Dr. Kimberly S. Young from the U.S.A. was used to refine our own "Internet Addiction Test" so that it could be used for systematic assessment and study, and could be set up as the foundation for localization in Hong Kong. The questionnaire has gone through many layers of testing and proofing. It is relatively objective, trustworthy and effective and can provide a basis of reference for our counterparts. Our plan is multi-dimensional. It includes hotlines, door-to-door counseling, parents support network, lectures, workshops and community education, etc. The plan has carried out many collaboration schemes with other professionals. These included the information technology sector, the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, schools and hospitals.