Community Care

HKU scholars have applied their expertise in the community to help organisations develop better services and new approaches and deepen public understanding about social and personal issues of concern.

Improving Life at the End

A project to improve end-of-life care has provided services to thousands of patients and healthcare workers and led to significant drops in hospitalisation and emergency services usage by terminal patients.

The three-year Jockey Club End-of-Life Community Care Project, led by Dr Amy Chow Yin-man of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, was launched in 2016 to provide practical and psycho-social support to patients and their families. Capacity enhancement training has been provided to more than 10,000 healthcare professionals and 586 volunteers, and services to more than 5,000 elderly living at home with terminal illnesses and those living in 36 residential homes for the elderly.

The project reported that by 2018, patients living at home who received the services reported 18% less discomfort from their illness and worried 55% less about family matters. Their hospital stays were 12.5% shorter during the last six months of their lives than similar terminal cases from 2015, before the project was launched, and their use of emergency services was 11.6% lower. Similarly, service recipients in residential homes for the elderly reported 45.8% shorter hospital stays and 18.4% reduced use of emergency services during the last three months of their lives when compared to 2015.

The project also carried out public education to help break the taboo of talking about death and raise awareness of the need to discuss end-of-life matters. Two surveys found that public understanding about end-of-life care increased from 30% in 2016 to 39% in 2018 and more than two-thirds of respondents said quality of life would be more important than extension of life should they have a terminal illness. The success of the project has prompted the Jockey Club to extend funding to 2022.

SPH and TELI are also developing and co-creating an e-platform with NGO partners, which will be the first of its kind in Hong Kong to provide frontline workers with easy access to online training (using mini-modules with mini-certificates), learning resources and experience-sharing opportunities.

The SMART Family-Link Project is expected to directly benefit about 75,000 individuals and about 1,000 social workers and hopefully serve as a model for other social services in Hong Kong. Public education activities and knowledge transfer, using Facebook and Family Portal, are also being carried out to raise awareness and knowledge on the themes of Smart Communication, Smart Parenting, Smart Emotion, Smart Coping and Smart Living Habits and will reach over 170,000 people.

Animal-assisted Projects to Promote Socio-emotional Health

Dr Paul Wong Wai-ching of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration has been leading the way in the region in studying and applying animal-assisted therapy to help children and young people achieve better well-being.

Initially, Dr Wong and his team worked with the Chinese Evangelical Zion Church Social Service Division to reach Hong Kong’s ‘hidden youth’ by offering sessions with trained therapy dogs. The programme helped entice the youths out of their rooms to get support from social workers. “The prospect of interacting with the animals was appealing to those who were otherwise reluctant to ask for help,” said Dr Wong, who estimates there are 20,000 to 40,000 socially withdrawn youths in Hong Kong.