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Aged Friendly in Eastern – Versatile Friendly Project (II)

Aged Friendly in Eastern – Versatile Friendly Project (II)

Summary

The TWGH Fong Shu Chuen District Elderly Community Centre organized the Age Friendly City programme to improve age-friendliness in 1) community support and health services, 2) civic participation and employment, and 3) respect and social inclusion within the district with support from the Jockey Club Age-friendly City Project. This program includes three sub-programs:

The first program provided a series of home care training workshops to older participants including pain management, feeding, and escort etc. Trained participants were matched and provided home care support services. This program could empower older people with new skill sets as well as provide them with employment opportunities.

The second program focused on health service. The center arranged different health care related services such as dental services, optometry, and podiatry to the older people in the district, to ensure that services were both accessible and provided in a timely manner.

The last program aimed to promote respect and social inclusion. A micro-film of a puppet show with age-friendly messages prepared by older people was produced and broadcasted on Youtube in order to increase the public awareness of intergenerational respect. Moreover, the center provided life and death education to older people and volunteers from different generations in order to enhance their knowledge of the ageing process and death. These volunteers were later to provide home visits and support to older people who are living alone.

Key facts

Main target group: Older people in general

Other target group(s): The general public

Sector(s): Health

Desired outcome for older people:
Meet their basic needs

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:
  • Ageing in place
  • Intergenerational activities
  • Inclusion
  • Participation

Contact details

Name:

Email address: edccadm@edc.had.gov.hk

Age-friendly practice in detail (click to expand):

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Social or health care provider

Others involved in the project:
  • Local authorities
  • Volunteers
  • Research institution

How collaboration worked: The programme was one of the district-based programmes under the Jockey Club Age-friendly City Project, which has been initiated and funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. With the support by the Eastern District Council, the programme was co-organized by the Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association Ming Yue District Elderly Community Centre, The Hong Kong Society for the Aged Eastern District Elderly Community Centre, and The Hong Kong Society for the Aged Chai Wan District Elderly Community Centre. The programme was evaluated by Sau Po Centre on Ageing, University of Hong Kong.

Older people’s involvement: Older people were involved in the age-friendly practice at multiple or all stages

Details on older people’s involvement: Older adults were target participants of the programme. Some older adults participated in the home care support services, while others participated in the micro-film production.

Moving forward

Has the impact of this age-friendly practice been analysed: Yes

Was the impact positive or negative:
Positive

Feedback:
Feedback from the primary target group: A) Respect and Social Inclusion: Messages on age friendly were promoted to our volunteers from primary schools. Both teachers and students gained a valuable lesson in exploring and understanding the strengths of older adults through the ‘Puppet show’ and ‘sock puppet lesson’ taught by our Ageing Ambassadors. The young volunteers showed their respect and appreciation towards elders through the training programmes and home visits and support services. Our Ageing Ambassadors were proud of their performance in the “Puppet Show” and teaching lessons. They had achieved self-actualization and earned confidence from the appreciation from students. B) Community Support and Health Services Elders who received the health assessments or treatments expressed their appreciation towards the project. They were able to have better understanding on their health condition and equip with necessary health related knowledge. The preventative screening program helped to assess older peoples overall health and well-being, and enabled early detection of potentially disabling conditions. C) Civic participation and employment Our Ageing Ambassadors, mostly aged 50 and above, gained a greater sense of self-efficacy and life satisfaction through the volunteer service in providing home care services to frail elders. Furthermore, they were able to equip themselves with more caring skills and knowledge.

Expansion plans:
This practice will be expanded as long as funding is available, in order to support more elders in enhancing their awareness in their health conditions and to promote the aged-friendly message to the community, especially in young generation.

Looking back

Reflections:
–Participation of local schools helps to mobilize more young volunteers to promote ‘Aged-friendly’. This will not only ensure a stable source of volunteers, but also help to deliver the ‘aged-friendly’ message to the young generation. –Adoption of internet media, like YouTube or Facebook, is suggested to promote the ‘aged-friendly’ message. This will be easy for teachers to use in educating students and will be better to share the knowledge and training materials to the general public.

Challenges:
–Because of the outbreak of the ‘Covid – 19, all activities have to be suspended. When the Covid-19 comes under control, we will invite our Ageing Ambassadors to take video for puppet lessons and show their abilities to community through the YouTube channel. At the same time, we will send the related materials and video link to school for educating purpose. –Due to the tight schedule of different health specialists, the provision of health assessment and treatment was limited that we could only arrange in first-come-first-serve basis or by random draw. In order to enhance elders’ awareness on health, custom made leaflet on self- healthcare tips were distributed to interested members.