Use ICT to Promote Family Well-being in Hong Kong

Information and communications technology (ICT) as a global trend The last few decades have seen a dramatic rise in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) and Internet access. According to the World Bank, 1.33 per cent of individuals in the world were using the Internet in 1996; in 2006, this figure rose to 17.58 %; by 2016, 45.91 % of individuals were using the Internet. Concurrently, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of mobile cellular subscriptions across the globe in the last two decades.

In line with the global trend, Hong Kong had 18.25 million mobile service subscribers in 2016. The Hong Kong Family and Health Information Trends Survey (FHinTs) under the Jockey Club FAMILY Project was conducted to monitor opinions and behaviours regarding family health, information use, and health communications. Our results showed that ICT platforms such as online websites, social media, and instant messages are widely used in Hong Kong. In FHinTs 2016 survey, 82.6% of the respondents had smartphones, and 48.8% had tablets. Similar findings from the Nielsen Media Index 2017 year-end report showed that 97% of all internet users in Hong Kong were using smartphones to access the internet. The amount of time spent online each day was 3.2 hours and 94% of people aged 12 to 64 were using the internet.

The role of ICT in enhancing family well-being in Hong Kong With the increasing use of ICT, family information can be easily accessed. According to the findings from FHinTs 2016, ICT was increasingly used as a method of family information seeking: 66.7% of respondents sought family information from online websites, compared with 53.6% in 2009. About 30.9% sought family information from social media such as Facebook, and 22.8% sought family information from instant messaging platforms such as WhatApp. Family information such as recreation (46.6%), family heath (22.9%) and elderly-related topics (17.9%) were most commonly sought. Also, family information seeking was associated with higher levels of family health, happiness, harmony, and overall family well-being. The associations were observed regardless of the type of sharing methods, such as face-to-face sharing or sharing via ICT means.

ICT in family interventions Alongside the growth in popularity of ICTs and its role in promoting family well-being, there is also a growing appreciation that ICTs such as internet-enabled devices and web-based applications can offer many advantages compared to traditional face-to-face approaches when delivering behaviour change programmes.

One of the biggest challenges of face-to-face programmes is diminishing reach and impact due to barriers to accessibility, cost-efficiency, flexibility to adapt to individuals, and structured intervention integrity . Using ICTs can address these barriers and may thus contribute to improving reach. ICT also helps facilitate access to interventions from a large variety of settings at all times, bringing the intervention to participants at times convenient to them and diminishing the influence of the situational constraints on intervention participation rates. The rise of ICT has created promising and potential new avenues and demand for implementing interventions related to mental health and parenting.

Family services in Hong Kong In light of the review on family services in Hong Kong in 2000, pilot projects on the Integrated Family Service Centre (IFSC) service mode were conducted in 2002. Having received positive feedback from the community on the pilot projects, 61 IFSCs were established in 2004 to provide public-funded family services in Hong Kong. These IFSCs comprise three important components, including the family resource unit (FRU), family support unit (FSU), and family counselling unit (FCU) to provide preventive, supportive, and remedial services respectively. They are operated by the Social Welfare Department and subvented non-governmental organizations to support and strengthen individuals and families, particularly single parents, new arrivals, ethnic minorities, and deprived families receiving Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA), in the community.

Society is always changing, and so do the community and families. In order to meet the changing needs of the community and families, a Review on the Implementation of the IFSC service mode was carried out in 2008 and completed in 2010 to evaluate the effectiveness of the IFSC service mode. The Review report "Building Effective Family Services: Review on the Implementation of the IFSC Service Mode" stated that the IFSC service mode is an appropriate service mode for public-funded family services in Hong Kong. However, the Review also identified factors hindering the delivery of IFSC services. These hindering factors are namely poor accessibility of some IFSCs, heavy workload, and stigmatization. With the use of ICT, these hindering factors can be overcome, thus improving the IFSC service mode.

Jockey Club SMART Family-Link Project Family well-being is the cornerstone of a harmonious society, and early support for families in need will avert crisis. The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust has funded to a four-year (2018-2021) "Jockey Club SMART Family-Link Project" to advance the use of Information and Communications Technology ("ICT") in family services. Interventions leveraging ICT (i-Action) is one of the project components, which leverage ICT to help social workers offer ICT-based interventions in their work to add on their face-to-face interventions. ICT tools and mobile apps will be designed and interactive games will be provided to engage children and young family service users through e-platforms. Social workers will also be able to connect with service users between face-to-face sessions using these e-platforms.

Importance of this study The present study aims to supplement the existing services and interventions delivered by the FRU, FSU and FCU, a series of brief ICT-based family interventions that promote family communication, cohesion, support and well-being and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of ICT-based interventions.

This protocol is to seek approval from Institutional Review Board (IRB) to collect data from the participants in the family services for in-depth analysis, and to write up scientific papers based on the findings generated from this project.