The annual Staff Award Scheme has become a tradition for HKCS to express our appreciation to our staff. The event was also designed to motivate quality service of care and efficiency, thus striving for excellence, vision and creativity in professional services.

Among the three award categories, the Outstanding Achievement Awards are granted to services and units, while the awards for Outstanding Service and Professional Performance are presented to individuals.

This year, a special award category was created to acknowledge three projects launched during last year's epidemic period of SARS. These three projects were among the program candidates nominated for the Outstanding Achievement Award category. 'Life Education on SARS' that was initiated by the Day Care Service was carried out three-fold to the child, parent and the teacher. ' Responsive Service on SARS' for all primary and secondary schools and parents and teachers was organised and carried out by our School Social Work Service. It tackled the class suspension, class resumption and follow up stages during the period from April 2003 to March 2004. 'Hopefully Yours' was a video program series produced by the Communications Centre to encourage people to be healed from the pain and trauma resulting from SARS.

The 'Yellow Ribbon Movement' initiated by the Youth Integrated Service won 'The Most Positive Response to Social Needs' and 'The Project on Elder Abuse Research & Protocol' won 'The Most Creative Service' award respectively under the Outstanding Achievement Award Category.

The two winning services went through an open assessment and sharing session scheduled for ten program candidates in the first round and are among the five finalists in the final round of adjudication.

The Assistant Director of the Social Welfare Department and the Head of the Social Work Department of Baptist University were invited to be members of the adjudication panel of which was comprised of two representatives from the Management Committee and our Chief Executive Team.

The adjudicators appreciated very much the method that the Youth Integrated Team applied to tackle the teen bully issue. It offered direct service with special consideration of the element of school culture. A strong belief to advocate a harmonious and caring culture in schools were the merits of this project. As for the 'Project on Elder Abuse Research & Protocol', adjudicators commented that the project was creative not only in terms of the content, but also in terms of the issue, elder abuse itself which brings long-term effects. The performance and ability of the staff involved in organising, coordinating as well as implementing were equally outstanding.