Hong Kong
Brief Program Description
With a constant concern on improving the parent-child relationship and alleviating the child abuse problem of Hong Kong, Tung Wah Group of Hospitals (in short, Tung Wah) began to pioneer PCIT service to Hong Kong in 2004, with 3 PCIT staff working in three districts including Tin Shui Wai, Tuen Mun and Tai Kok Tsui where the child abuse rate were high.
In November 2008, with the donation of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, Tung Wah launched a territory-wise 3-year project, “Parent-child Interaction Therapy Project – A New Initiative to Child Abuse Prevention” that allowed PCIT services to be extended to the integrated services centres and pre-schools in 9 districts in the territory to improve the service accessibility. The project aims at preventing child abuse by improving the parent-child relationship and enhancing the parental competence, with a target of serving 600 families in three years. The service targets are at-risk families having children age 2 to 7 with externalizing behavior problems and parents who may physically abuse their child or at risk of child abuse.
PCIT Training workshops are delivered to those working closely with young children having behavioral difficulties such as preschool teachers, child residential care workers and foster parents, so as to strengthen their work skills in relating with children.
Training
In 2004, about 20 Tung Wah social workers were trained with PCIT by Dr. Anthony Urquiza and Dr. Nancy Zebell of the CAARE Centre of University of California, Davis. In 2005, three PCIT staff, namely Kitty Heung, Trian Choi and Monique Chan attended the advanced training at CAARE Centre.
In 2008, Kitty Heung and Trian Choi conducted the in-house 5-day PCIT training for 10 social workers who became the “second generation” PCIT therapists. All the workers have received 50 hours direct coaching clinical supervision. Five of these therapists have subsequently become the core PCIT team members of the current project “Parent-child Interaction Therapy Project – A New Initiative to Child Abuse Prevention”. In June 2010, five staff members including Tammy Sin, Trian Choi, Gene Ng, Agnes Choi and Maggie Ma received advanced PCIT training delivered by Professors Sheila Eyberg, Stephen Boggs, Regina Bussing and Dr. Reesa Donnelly at the University of Florida. From July to August 2010, another 5-day PCIT basic training was carried out with 14 Tung Wah social workers becoming the third generation PCIT workers.
Activities and events
On 23 & 24 June 2005, Tung Wah conducted the first PCIT event in Hong Kong, “Symposium & Workshop: New initiatives of Child Abuse Prevention” with over 200 participants. Dr. Sheila Eyberg, Dr. Anthony Urquiza and Dr. Nancy Zebell were our overseas speakers and trainers of the event.
On 25 October 2007, a luncheon and press conference on our first research, “ The outcome and process evaluation of the Parent-child Interaction therapy (PCIT) in treating families with children with behaviour problems in Hong Kong” was held with over 60 government officials, magistrates, professionals coming from medical and welfare sectors attending the function.
On 12 June 2010, Ms. Tammy Sin made an oral presentation on the interim study report on the service effectiveness of the current project in the Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development: The Agenda, conducted in Hong Kong. The research abstract was granted as one of the Best Abstract Award (Practitioner).
On 5 August 2010, a press conference was held to announce “Outcome Study of applying Parent-child Interaction Therapy to Children aged 2 to 7 exhibiting behavior problems in Hong Kong”.
Research
At present a research project using a randomized control trial design to investigate the effectiveness of PCIT for children aged 2 to 7 exhibiting behavior problems in Hong Kong is in progress. Prof. Sandra Tsang of the University of Hong Kong and Prof. Cynthia Leung of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University are the principal investigators.
Literature citations of PCIT publications from program
Leung, C., Tsang, S., Heung, K., & Yiu, I. (2009). Effectiveness of Parent-child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) among Chinese families, Research on Social Work Practice, 19(3), 304-313.
Tsang, S., Leung, C. & Tung Wah Group of Hospitals. (2007). Research Report on “The outcome and process evaluation of the Parent-child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) in treating families with children with behaviour problems in Hong Kong”.
(http://pcit.tungwahcsd.org/pcit_report.pdf
)
Papers presentation at conference:
Heung, K. (2006). “The effectiveness of adapting Parent-child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) for families with children suffering behavior problems in Hong Kong.”Presented at the 5th International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health. HKSAR, China.
Leung, C., Heung, K., & Chan, M. (2007). “Evaluation of the effectiveness of the Parent-child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) in treating families with children with behaviour problems in Hong Kong”. Presented at the 15th Oklahoma Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect and Healthy Families.
Contact information
Tammy C. S. SIN,
Community Services Officer (Youth & Family)
Tung Wah Group of Hospitals
6/F, TWGHs Wong Fung Ling Memorial Building
12 Po Yan Street, Sheung Wan
Hong Kong Special Administration Region
Email: tammy..hk
Telephone: 852-28597741
Fax: 852-28597618
Website : http://pcit.tungwahcsd.org/