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Summary

The Caritas Mok Cheung Sui Kun Community Centre organised the Age Friendly City programme to improve age-friendliness in social participation within the district with the support from the Jockey Club Age-friendly City Project (JCAFC). With the aim of providing support to solitary older adults and older couples, this programme included two parts:

This programme began with a series of home visits and reached 1,372 households to identify 41 households with 86 solitary older adults and older couples. The selected 86 individuals identified were followed up with a health assessment, home visits and service referral by social workers in order to bridge community resources to them.

Moreover, 41 residents were recruited as voluntary “neighbourhood care ambassadors” and trained with older care knowledge and skills to provide regular home visits. The volunteers aimed to establish good relationships with older households and encouraged them to participate in the programmes organised by the community centres to foster social participation and inclusion.

This programme also strengthened the support to caregivers with training workshops on mental wellbeing and caregiving skills. A mutual help group was set up afterwards. These training workshops and support groups helped to build internal capacity and provide once isolated citizens with a platform for information exchange, relaxation and mutual support.

Finally, 4,000 copies of the programme booklets introducing the concept of AFC, older caregiving knowledge, and community resources were printed and distributed in the district. Followed by a closing ceremony and a sharing session to increase local communities’ and stakeholders’ awareness on the issue.

Key facts

Main target group: Vulnerable older people (e.g. at risk or victims of abuse, living alone, poor etc.)

Other target group(s): The general public

Sector(s): Health, Information and communication

Other sector(s): N/A

Desired outcome for older people:
Meet their basic needs

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

Contact details

Name:

Email address: cwdc_secretariat_gr@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 of the Central and Western District Council, the programme was co-organised by the Caritas Elderly Centre – Central District, and the Caritas Community Centre – Caine Road. 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 the target participants of the programme. Some older adults participated as volunteers in the home visit, while others participated in the closing ceremony.

Moving forward

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

Was the impact positive or negative:
Positive

Please share with us what you found in detail:
Most of the participants (87.5%) agreed or strongly agreed that the programme activities increased the age-friendliness especially in the area of social participation. There was no significant change in sense of community (28.9 to 30.2, p=0.351), KAOP (38.1 to 37.9, p=0.880), and quality of life (29.6 to 29.3, p=0.693) before and after the programme. All the changes were non-significant though this might be a result of the small sample size. Many of the participants (81.3%) were satisfied with the programmes and all of them (100%) would recommend the programmes to others. Most (90%) agreed or strongly agreed that the activity improved their understanding of an age-friendly city, the information presented was useful, and the staff were accommodating and helpful.

Evaluation report: Evaluation-report.pdf

Feedback:
The caregivers found themselves enjoying the continuous care from their younger neighbours who joined the Project as “Neighbourhood Care Ambassadors”, some older adults said that they already treat the volunteers as family members and would seek their help in times other than during scheduled visits. They have also enjoyed the mutual help group with other caregivers, shedding tears and laughers with one another after the first two sessions. They said they have long been so preoccupied and not able to meet with friends and families. They have cherished the sharing time and they have continued their participation for more than 2 years now.

Expansion plans:
In contrast to the professional-led community care model, the implementation of neighbourhood care model by this Project has demonstrated the positive impact of this bottom-up approach to achieve participation from those once isolated caregivers as well as people from other generations to form a caring circle. It could further offer continuous, accessible and informal support to older caregivers, responding to their specific needs. It should be further promoted in Hong Kong’s social and medical service sectors, empowering members of local communities by equipping them with basic knowledge and skills of holistic care for the aged, and at the same time strengthening themselves in facing their own ageing process. The project team aims to scale up the project in the near future, after soliciting sufficient financial resources.

Looking back

Reflections:
Common characteristics of older adults in Central & Western Districts, include living in aged residential buildings with poor accessibility facilities, lower than average family household size, and more willingness to stay as long as they could in their home in comparison to going to aged homes. In order to facilitate their social participation, their physical living environment has to be enhanced or better maintained. The future project could reserve resources on minor building works to allow the participants to make decisions on modifying their homes to enhance their quality of life.

Challenges:
Many caregivers are not prepared to take up their care-giving role in the first place and they have a steep learning curve to work on in their rare leisure time. They have developed their own wisdom through rapid communications with professionals and people sharing similar life experiences. It took significant effort to motivate them to see the need and participate in training workshops. The team steered the positioning of the training workshops as opportunities for the caregivers to exchange ideas and knowledge with the trainer professionals, and the elderly felt being respected and their participation has been deepened.