Nanjing YMCA Organizes University-Level Social Work Students and Teachers to Visit Hong Kong for Professional Research
August 18-23, 2012, the Nanjing YMCA organized 27 social work students and teachers from seven universities in Nanjing to visit Hong Kong and conduct professional social work research. The Nanjing YMCA Assistant Director-General Zhao Dongshu accompanied the group to Hong Kong and coordinated related affairs. The purpose of this trip was to understand the current situation of the development of social service work for elderly people, teenagers and people with disabilities in Hong Kong, understand what professional effect YMCA social work has in the sphere of social services, enhance university-level social work students and teachers’ understanding of the YMCA’s professional ability in social services, causing them to gradually become volunteers and better attending the Nanjing YMCA’s social service work.
After the group arrived in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Chinese YMCA Executive Director Dr. Wu Jianxin immediately shared with everyone the relationship between social welfare and social work, the different types of social work, and the values and work ethics of social work, and introduced Hong Kong’s social work training and job-appointing pattern as well as the set up of social work classes in Hong Kong universities. During Dr. Wu Jianxin’s speech, the Nanjing social work students and teachers earnestly took notes and from time to time interacted with and asked questions of Dr. Wu. Dr. Wu’s explanations were witty and filled with practical examples of social service, winning bursts of applause from everyone.
After dinner we toured one of Hong Kong’s social organizations that specializes in serving teenagers that are socially unstable and have behavioral deviations—Youth Outreach. They use break dancing, movable karaoke cars, sports activities, graffiti cartoon creation, and other activities to attract teenagers who do not return home at night, listen to their depression and feelings, make friends with them, develop their potential, and turn them from participants to volunteers—the leaders of the activity, eventually to become staff members at Youth Outreach or move toward employment. From the marginal teenager remedial education pattern it is not difficult to discover the strenuous efforts invested by social work in this.
Next, we visited the Hong Kong Chinese YMCA Chaiwan Club’s “Night Youth” (teenagers that don’t return home at night) service team. The YMCA’s social workers work everyday from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am, preventing these marginalized teenagers from being roped in and corrupted by gangsters, launching family tutoring work, and improving parent-child relationships. The SAR Government and all sectors of the community approve their work performance. After touring these comprehensive service centers for teenagers, Dr. Wu Jianxin introduced to our group various service institutions that work for Hong Kong’s teenagers as well as their respective functions. The university-level social work students and teachers welcomed this kind of combined activity training method.
Each of the Hong Kong Chinese YMCA clubs provides diverse services to elderly people, from offering all kinds of interest classes to elderly people on welfare, nursing homes for middle to old age elderly people, and quick Chinese food service, all are brimming with satisfied requirements, excellent service, quick sanitation, and a comfortable atmosphere for elderly people. Not only have they solved the family worries of the elderly people’s children, they have also laid an excellent mass base for the YMCA to develop volunteers and members.
The Hong Kong Chinese YMCA’s service in the sheltered workshop for people with disabilities reflects human concern, respect and protection for their legal rights, unearths their potential, allows them to better integrate into social life, and develops the ability to take care of oneself.
We also toured the Hong Kong YWCA Sham Shui Po Club and learned about the condition of the elderly people and teenagers in the surrounding community.
Looking back on this six-day tour and educational visit, we have two impressions:
1 – Hong Kong social organizations receive free activity locations provided by the SAR government that are all near business centers or large communities with convenient transportation. They also receive social enterprise sponsorship money. These institutions are supervised and managed by the government’s social welfare department, which designs service programs according to each institution’s mission and the needs of their service target, striving for special funds and financial support from the government, social enterprises and city residents. The Hong Kong government stipulates that every community with 50,000 people must have a comprehensive YMCA center and a reasonable arrangement of nursing homes and foster centers for disabled persons. The government gives the majority of social welfare work to social organizations and places more attention on the formulation and revision of social welfare policies, enabling city residents to enjoy more public social services. When buying out the public service of all types of social organizations, the government emphasizes inspecting their professional service ability and the transparency of their financial affairs, and encourages fair competition, thus promoting the increase of social service quality.
2 – In the process of its own development and development, the Hong Kong Chinese YMCA strengthens its institutional brand culture, develops a sense of belonging, honor and success in its employees, continuously improves the professional ability of its employees, emphasizes cost accounting for service projects and develops business fee service projects to subsidize public welfare service projects with insufficient funding. At the same time, they frequently launch large-scale public square activities, continuously displaying their excellent social public image, integrating social resources, and striving for sponsorship and donations from many sides.
In order to increase the concrete, professional social work service techniques of Nanjing’s university-level social work students and teachers and assimilate the advanced experiences of the non-governmental institutions in Hong Kong, the Nanjing YMCA will organize another professional training and observation group of social work students and teachers during the summer vacation of 2013. To apply, please call: 83307098.
