Prof. Bowen McBeath

School of Social Work and Division of Public Administration
Portland State University

Topic: Collaborative Evaluation Models to Promote Organizational Improvement and Service Effectiveness

Over the past decade, the US social service sector has experienced significant pressures to do more with less. Public funders and policymakers have demanded that public social service organizations provide services more effectively and efficiently. In the nonprofit and voluntary sector, private social service organizations (which are similar to NGOs) have faced performance pressures, competition for public funds and private philanthropic support, and increasingly complex needs of client populations. In the face of these challenges, private social service organizations have innovated by developing new programme, new service technologies, and new approaches to the use of evidence.

I review three promising agency-based models of using evidence to promote innovative programme and agency performance. The first is the evidence-informed management model, in which agency managers seek to integrate the best available research, agency-based data, and other sources of information to promote strategic decision-making. The second is the link officer model, in which a designated agency practitioner (usually a middle manager) links the agency to an intermediary research organization that provides research support services. The third is the performance management model, in which agency leaders support the creation of a performance-oriented organizational culture through the development and systematic use of internal performance measurement systems. All three models require collaboration between managers, staff, and other stakeholders within and outside of the agency.

For each of these three models, I review recent evidence drawn from my own research of US, Canadian, and UK private social service organizations. I also provide profiles of evidence-informed, innovation-focused managers as well as those agencies that are using evidence to promote agency performance. I conclude by describing the organizational supports needed for private social service organizations to use these three models effectively.

Ms. Kam WONG

Senior Programme Manager
CancerLink Tin Shui Wai
Hong Kong Cancer Fund

Mr. Felix CHEUK

Programme Manager
CancerLink Tin Shui Wai
Hong Kong Cancer Fund

Topic: Integrating Research into Practices: Extended Family Support for Cancer Patients and Their Children

Rainbow Club is a service of Hong Kong Cancer Fund, tailored for children (aged 5-15) whose family members are affected by cancer. We adopt a strength based family centered approach, and provided a multi-level and psychosocial service through multi-disciplinary team. Before the service started, the Club had collaborated with HKU Centre of Behavioral Health to conduct a need study. The study revealed that cancer patients and caregivers with children under aged 15 reported significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression and over 60% of the respondents didn't think young children should be informed about parental illness.

On the other hand, to measure the effectiveness of the service, it was systematic in collecting client’s satisfaction and qualitative feedbacks during the programme, while validated assessment tools were adopted for the pre-test and post-test to evaluate the client’s changes. Findings show that over 90% of the participants agreed that programme objectives could be reached, e.g. children’s readiness to talk about cancer with their parents. Children’s self-esteem is also significantly improved after participating the Big Brother and Big Sister programme (t =2.99, p<.05), which demonstrates the impact of participating in mind-off pleasure activities and a steady support from volunteers. The study also reveals that parents do not aware the psychological distress, insecure feelings and fear of their children. Therefore, we suggested having psychoeducation and parallel parent-child programme on facilitating direct communication about illness.

Further studies to evaluate the children’s psychosocial change will be conducted.

Topic: Top Teen Voluntary Group - An Integration of Youth Empowerment and Action Research

Top Teen Voluntary Group is found upon the philosophy of empowerment. Through fostering their participation ladder which emphasizes ‘self-directing’, ‘participation’ and ‘peer-mentoring’, we target students with low academic achievement, low self-confidence and lack of social skills to serve on the disadvantaged. To ensure our service quality and empower the student participants, Action Research is adopted as the evaluation strategy, where the student participants take a dual role of researcher and service planner, allowing them to translate their own ideas with the support of research findings to improve the service.

Since 2012, 62 student participants showed positive change in ‘self-confidence’, ‘competency’, ‘inter personal relationship’ and ‘social awareness’. Among the group, 77.4% of 31 students whose academic result ranked amongst the lowest 30% in their class, achieved a better academic result after joining the group. Moreover, the group has won more than 30 awards, and have participated in sharing sessions in different organizations for more than 12 times. Successfully, Top Teen students promote a far-reach culture of caring for the poor and treasure our food in both their schools and communities.

Topic: “Music for Life” - A Cognitive Intervention Programme with Music Therapy Elements (CIPMT) for People with Mild Cognitive Impairment

“Music for Life” is an innovative programme which has been launched by HKSKH Tseung Kwan O Aged Care Complex. The target is people with mild cognitive impairment living in community. “Body-Mind-Spirit” approach has been adopted. Other than focusing on cognitive domain, psychosocial, ADL and spiritual aspects are also considered. A cognitive intervention programme integrated with music therapy elements (CIPMT) has been designed by a multi-disciplinary team, including occupational therapist, social worker and music therapist. A research has been done to evaluate the effects of this programme. Since the result of this pilot study is encouraging, we published a training manual, held sharing and workshops to sustain and promote the programme.

The evidence-based evaluation on the effectiveness of the programme had been done in collaboration with Dr. Adrian Wong, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. 40 elderly people with MCI were recruited to a cognitive intervention programme consisted of attention, memory and cognitive training, education of memory strategies, general cognitive stimulation and compensatory cognitive rehabilitation. At the same time, a study with randomized controlled trial method was conducted.20 elderly participants joined a cognitive intervention programme with music therapy elements (CIPMT) (treatment group) for 12 sessions. Another 20 participants joined a 12-session cognitive intervention programme without music therapy elements (control group). Cognitive, psychosocial and IADL assessments are administered before and after the programme.

Relative to the control group, subjects in the treatment group had significantly higher scores on 3 cognitive measures, including the MMSE, MoCA and verbal fluency test. They also had higher score on the Lawton IADL, indicating better ADL independence. And lower score on GDS, indicating less depressed mood.

People with cognitive deficits may also have different degrees of psychosocial problems, depressed mood, etc. The result of this study is encouraging that improvement shown not only in cognitive domain, but also in the areas of mood and ADL independence. Instead of focusing on cognitive training, it is worth providing treatment in terms of “Person-centered”/ “Body-Mind-Spirit” approach, so as to fulfill the cognitive, psychosocial, and spiritual needs of people with cognitive deficits.

Ms. CHAN Yuk Kuen, Candy

Supervisor
Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association

Topic: A Longitudinal Evaluation Study on Infinity． HOPE: Supportive Service Project for Children with Dyslexia

The project adopts a holistic approach to help children with dyslexia to enhance their learning ability and positive self-concept as well as to strengthen the quality of family support to them. It involves four service components termed HOPE, that is, Happiness, Optimism, Positiveness and Echo. “Happiness” focuses on multi-sensory education for children and their parents provided by social worker and educational psychologist, and gross/fine motor training for children by occupational therapist. “Optimism” aims to further enhance children’s learning abilities and self-confidence through art therapy and paired reading by volunteers. “Positiveness” facilitates children and their parents to have a positive review of the learning process. “Echo” aims to raise public concern on dyslexia through sharing of project experience.

The project launched from October 2012 to September 2015. In order to investigate its effectiveness, questionnaire survey and focus group were used to collect data from participants. Pre-test and post-test questionnaires were completed by child and parent participants respectively. Moreover, parent participants and child participants were interviewed in respective focus group after the programme. In addition to pre-test and post-test questionnaire survey, follow up questionnaire was administered for the second batch participants half a year after the end of the programme to examine the sustainable effect of the programme. Study results showed that the programme had beneficial effects on promoting self-confidence, as well as enhancing learning ability learning ability among child participants. Moreover, enhanced positive parent-child relationship was also confirmed among the parent and child participants in the study.

Ms. HEUNG Yin Kwan, Kitty

Supervisor
TWGHs Tuen Mun Integrated Services Center

Prof. LEUNG Man, Cynthia

Department of Applied Social Sciences
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Topic: Developing an Evidence-based Programme - “Healthy Start Home Visit Programme”

The “Healthy Start Home Visit Programme” (HSHVP), co-organized by the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the University of Hong Kong, is an early prevention and intervention strategy to promote the holistic development of young children from disadvantaged families (new arrival/ single-parent family/ low income family) through parent involvement in education, multidisciplinary collaboration and home-school collaboration. It aims to equip parents to provide home visit training to disadvantaged parents. Funded by the Quality Education Fund (QEF), the efficacy of the HSHVP was evaluated using randomized control trial design from 2010 to 2013. Research results indicated that the programme was effective in promoting preschool children’s holistic development in behavioural, learning, and physical domains.

With the promising results of the efficacy study, the programme was funded by QEF again under the Quality Education Fund Thematic Network on Parent Education to extend the programme to Tuen Mun, Tin Shui Wai and Yuen Long. The home visit model could tailor services for families according to their daily routines and needs. Furthermore, this systematic and intensive curriculum could equip parents with knowledge and skills to teach other service recipient parents. Home-school collaboration also strengthened the communication between parents and teachers to support children’s development.

Ms. CHAN Ka Lam, Jess

Senior Speech Therapist & Service Supervisor
Infant Stimulation and Parent Effectiveness Training Service
Hong Kong Christian Service

Ms. TSE Wai Ching, Ana

Speech Therapist
Infant Stimulation and Parent Effectiveness Training Service
Hong Kong Christian Service

Topic: “Let’s Talk Right! – Speech Therapy Intensive Home Training Programme”

Age 2 to 6 constitutes the time which language development thrives within the critical period. However, due to the limited provision of speech therapy resources and high standing of professional techniques, language acquisition of children in need made less achievable.

Realizing this fact, attempt was made to promote the implementation of home practice, along with workshops and distribution of the home-based training material kit “ my toddler talks right”, caregivers were equipped to provide home practice that aligns with children’s language development while waiting to gain access to early intervention service.

Research aimed at assessing the efficacy was conducted, in hopes of investigating the impact of the project. The result showed that children in the experimental group, who have been engaging in home practice for six months, demonstrated significant improvement in the overall language competence, especially in the quantity of vocabularies used and sentence length. A positive impact on caregivers and parents’ psychological state has also been noted.

This result was inspiring in local speech therapy profession. With the aim to help the ones in need, therapists start thinking this going -in mode. Project leader was invited to expound with more complexity in local institutes. All the future-to-be speech therapists were touched and inspired.

Mr. CHAN Man Ho, Wilson

Supervisor
Youth Crime Prevention Centre
The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups

Mr. TSANG Ho Him, Kenneth

Youth Work officer
Youth Crime prevention Centre
The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups

Topic: Use of Electronic Assessment Platform for Assessment: Project IAPT

The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups Youth Crime Prevention Centre had co-operated the “Project IAPT” with the Clinical Psychological Service and Substance Abuse Assessment Unit of Kwai Chung Hospital and jointly advocated the “Improving access to Psychological Therapies” treatment model with aim to provide standardized, evidence based, easily accessible counseling and supporting services with different level of intensity for youths at risks of drug taking or having drug abuse and mental health problems, and their parents. The Project established a comprehensive electronic assessment platform which composed of several scientific cognitive and mental health assessment tools. Over 3,000 youths were screened in the project, by which more than 700 received structured “Low-intensity therapy” treatment to enhance their efficacy to resist drug and improve mental health. 70 young drug abusers received “High-intensity therapy” treatment by clinical psychologists to enhance their motivation to quit drug and deal with mental health problems. The Project also assisted more than 100 parents to improve their identification skills and communication skills with struggled, in which 20 parents were referred to clinical psychologist for “High- intensity therapy” treatment.

Mr. CHUK Wing Hung, Keswick

Service Director (Youth Service)
Evangelical Lutheran Church Social Service – Hong Kong

Topic: Impact Evaluation on Enlightenment Project (I, II, III)

Enlightenment Project I, II, III are providing therapies that assist the inmates with drug use to stay away from drugs by recognizing the problems behind and exploring their inner resources and strength.

In evaluating the effectiveness of the project, both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. By quantitative methods, two sets of structured questionnaire were used to tap group members’ evaluation of the group. One set is for achievement of group objectives in Phase I,II,and III, another set is “The Stages of Change Readiness and Treatment Eagerness Scale, SOCRATES mark sheet” that shows the motivation of members for changes for Phase I, and II). By qualitative methods, narrative inquiry and outsider witness were used in Phase II & III. The group members’ subjective experience of going through the group sessions was explored. In phase III, the group members were also asked to draw their tree of life in the pre-group and the last group session and conduct sharing. The differences and discoveries were witnessed by other group members and documented. Drawing the tree of life was conducted both in narrative and control group.

Both the quantitative questionnaires and qualitative interviews yielded promising feedbacks on group effectiveness, all showing that the group process not only enabled the members to determine to abstinence from drugs but also assisted the members to reconnect with their achievements, people who are significant to them, reconnect with hopes and dreams as well as gaining confidence and energy for new life and identities in future.

The tree of life was found to be useful to document members’ difference in the group process, as they added words/colors/drawings to the tree that represented their lives. Those changes are obvious to both researchers and group members involved. In addition, apart from serving people who use drugs, the narrative group may actually serve people with multiple and structured problems that may be closely linked to one another and can hardly be treated separately.

Topic: Arts of Collaboration: How to Assess the Needs of Child Care with Research and Evidence

Topic: Experience Sharing on Promoting Evidence-based Service Evaluation in Agencies