"Carer Support" Program
Sponsor: Zonta Club of Hong Kong East
Program background:
As soon as a child with intellectual disability is born, parents/caregivers begin their lifelong responsibilities of nursing. Faced with an intellectually disabled child, many parents, especially mothers, may blame themselves for children disability, and some parents may even divorce. The pressure of lifelong caregiving is beyond the comprehension of others. The caregiver's psychological state has a direct impact on the physical and mental health of the intellectually disabled child, as well as on the relationships among family. For example, friction between the mother as the primary caregiver and her husband, the mother pays more attention to the intellectual disabled child may be misunderstood as "partiality" by other siblings, etc.
Program purpose:
Based on abovementioned circumstances, our program provides a series of "caregiver support" services for a period of 20 months. This project consists of three parts: organizing a support group, parent's cafe meetings, and public seminars. Careers (mostly mothers) desperately need support for their anxieties to cope with their stress of nursing with positive thinking for the purpose of preventing potential family conflicts.
A)Support Group
Objective:
| Provide training for parents (around 8-10 mothers) to reach out and support inactive members and understand their needs, in order to offer more suitable services and increase their sense of belonging. In the long run, we also hope to cultivate potential members to inherit the executive committee in the future. |
Content: |
Collaborating organization: Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation Community Rehabilitation Network Patient Mutual Help Center
|
Participant's feedback:
| Participants have improved their self-confidence in the process of training as caregivers and gladly share community information and their learning journeys with others. Although participants realized individual’s uniqueness, boundary can be eliminated with sincere communication and sharing for the enrichment of life.
During counselling by phone calls, participants didn’t consider it as philanthropic acts, but an opportunity of learning and motivating with each other. All participants claimed that they would like to continue working as caregivers, because they enjoy sincere conversations with other fellow parents. |
B1) Parents’Cafe Meeting:
Objective:
| Through the guidance of experienced social workers, parents can regularly exchange their experiences with fellow parents to release their pressure and improve self-confidence. As the result, parents adapt to more positive perspective and optimize relationships among family. |
Content: | Parent’s café allows participants to experience variety of activities in a relaxing environment for the purpose of reflecting on the meaning of life. Participants will be inspired to adapt to a “live in the moment” attitude and encouraged to express their negative thoughts. Parents with positive thinking create a harmonious atmosphere in home and prevent domestic violence. |
B2) Parents’Café – Ideal Home:
Objective:
| Minimize parent stress and improve their mood to prevent family conflict. |
Content: | A lecture will be held once a month (6 themes - 12 sessions in total). Parents are encouraged to participate in discussion in lectures guided by senior tutors and social workers. The expected outcome is to prevent potential family conflicts by improving parent's coping mechanism of stress. |
Collaborating organization： | Hong Kong Lutheran Social Service Rehabilitation Division (For first season of parent’s activities) |
C) Caregiver Support Seminar
Objective:
| Appeal to the public for caregiver support through public seminars. Encourage caregivers, especially mothers, to share their stress and needs on stage to draw the public's attention to family conflicts and other social issues caused by stress. Another objective of public seminars is to demand the government to institute a case management system for people with intellectual disabilities to optimized social services for intellectually disabled people in long term. |
Content: | Case management system is crucial for rehabilitation and life planning for children with special needs in different stages. |
