香港大學香港賽馬會防止自殺研究中心獲得優質教育基金的撥款，在本港中小學推行為期四年培養學生正面態度和價值觀的計劃，透過與老師及家長共同合作，希望提高學生的生理及心理健康質素。由於父母對子女成長具有重要而深遠的影響，為促進父母營造正向成長環境及化解常見的親子衝突，本中心將於27/2/2016(星期六)上午舉行兩場家長講座，題目分別為：(一)衝突停得了 及 (二)正向教育造福家庭，費用全免，詳情分列如下，敬希垂注。

貴家長如欲參加上述兩個家長講座，請於23/2/2016前填妥網上回條，額滿即止。如有任何查詢，可致電 2831 5229與許小姐聯絡。

Professor IWATA, Yasuyuki (Deputy President of Curriculum Center for Teachers, Tokyo Gakugei University) and Dr. Li Jun (Associate Professor, Education Policy Unit, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong) arranged a study visit to CSRP with 10 Tokyo Gakugei University students on 27 Jan 2016. These students are prospective primary school teachers and are particularly interested in understanding teacher and student suicide and the corresponding prevention efforts in Hong Kong. Staff from the CSRP presented the suicide figures in Hong Kong, the current mental health programmes for students and 3 research reports about Hong Kong teachers’ workload and wellness. In return, Professor IWATA and the students shared about the general role of primary school teachers and the possible causes of student suicides in Japan. Both CSRP and the visitors from Japan have enhanced understanding of each other’s work. In addition, all agreed that suicide prevention is an important issue and everyone can contribute to make a difference.

School-based Mental Health Programmes

The Centre’s Education team had a remarkable year in 2015. With support from the Quality Education Fund (QEF), the web and school-based mental health promotion programme, “The Adventures of DoReMiFa”, was successfully rolled out among children in primary schools. Students of participating schools were found to have improved mental health indicators after receiving teachings in empathy, gratitude, emotional management, and interpersonal skills. The team produced manuals and e-lessons on various topics of mental health for students, teachers, and parents, and held a dissemination seminar to share its success stories with local schools and non-government organizations.

The QEF is also committed to strengthening evidence-based practice and establishing networks for the sharing of good practice. One of its projects with the CSRP, Thematic Network on Developing Students’ Positive Attitudes and Values, is a universal evidence-based mental health programme aimed at promoting holistic wellbeing among students. The project went through planning stage in 2015. So far the team has developed teaching plans and held an Executive Committee meeting in November 2015 to present the directions and plans for the project to various stakeholders including representatives from the Education Bureau and principals from different core schools. Stakeholders at the meeting gave positive feedback to the team and valuable suggestions for successful implementation of the project. We look forward to the implementation stage of the programme in 2016 and hope to continue to positively impact the mental health of our future generation.

Getting Creative with Teaching about Mental Health

Our team is committed to making learning about mental health a fun experience for students. This has led to incorporating movie clips, stories, art making, and interactive games in teaching material for 2016. The intended outcome is that learning be an engaging process that does not overwhelm students.

A new teaching style called “brain-based learning” will also undergo trial in the classrooms of primary schools. One example is “think-pair-share”, which facilitates teaching by grouping students in pairs and have them share their own experiences and feelings in different circumstances after reading a story. As in secondary schools, mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques and mindful yoga will be introduced in the student programme. Students are encouraged to stay in the present moment and to increase their awareness of one’s physical and psychological needs.

Community Partnership

Community involvement can make a meaningful differences in the lives of those in need, and cross-sectoral partnership is powerful for mobilizing existing resources to make an impact. Project WeCan is a business-school partnership programme in which various business corporations provide human and financial resources for less-privileged students. The CSRP performed an evaluation on this project and saw that students participated in the programme had developed different kinds of skills and felt more hopeful about their futures. The evaluation showed the positive impacts of such programmes and suggested that more students could benefit from further corporate participation. We hope to support the development of new partnerships in the future.

The Angels of Education Team

Not only the participants benefited from our projects. Our staff also have had a great experience promoting mental health:

“The most unforgettable lesson is one of the positive psychology lessons on gratitude. I was surprised and touched to see special-education-needed kids show gratitude to their classmates, teachers and us. No matter how challenging the work is, it is worthy when I witness the change among students.”

“It was an impressive experience to see how powerful collaboration between different disciplines can be. I was amazed to see how seemingly unrelated business and education sectors could work jointly to empower the less-privileged students.”

“Most importantly, we get to know a school principal who truly loves and cares her students and treats them as if they were her sons and daughters. Her work and sharing inspired and encouraged me a lot.”

The student programmes for primary and secondary schools participating in the QTN Project have been developed. Corresponding teachers have received training about how to implement the programmes, and the programmes are going to start in January.

On 27 February, we will organize 2 parents talks for our participating schools. One for primary schools and another one for secondary schools. The topics include how to promote positive education in family and effective skills to enhance parent-child communication. Recruitment will start soon.

* Due to restriction of resources, this seminar is ONLY available to participating schools in the project.

School recruitment exercise was completed.  In total 27 primary schools and 21 secondary schools joined the thematic network as of 8 Sept 2015. The first training workshop for school teachers on evidence-based practice and programme evaluation in school settings was conducted on 27 Aug 2015. In the new school year 2015-16, the project team will start developing universal programmes for students in developing positive attitudes and values with our core primary and secondary schools.

Interviews and focus groups with different stakeholders of participating schools and business units of the evaluation study had been completed in May 2015.  The volunteer survey has rolled out in June 2015. Currently, the project team is writing the final report for this evaluation study.

All participating schools have completed classroom teaching in June 2015. The project team has conducted 8 focus groups with students and 6 review meetings with school teachers/social workers to collect their feedback towards the programme. Two parent workshops and two training workshops were conducted in July and Aug 2015 for the teachers of participating schools. Currently, the project team is assessing the effectiveness of the programme.