Family Wellness

Owing to rapid socio-economic and demographic transformations, families in Hong Kong are facing various challenges. Many of them struggle to overcome poverty and to provide necessities for their children and older family members. At the same time, they also find it difficult to strike a balance between work and family responsibilities and to maintain an intergenerational solidarity.

HKCSS has compiled the Social Development Index of Hong Kong since 1998. It shows that the figures reflecting family solidarity, including divorce, family violence and families in poverty, have all been worsening. The index dropped from 100 in 1998 to -309 in 2010.

2014 marks the 20th anniversary of the International Year of the Family. The international community will focus on discussing family policies. Facing the challenges of family poverty, social stress, an aging population and population movement, we are paying special attention to the issues of families in poverty, work-family balance and intergenerational solidarity.

As a collaboration platform for various sectors, HKCSS encourages all stakeholders, including the government, the social service sector, the business sector, the civil society to maintain the functions of the family and to promote the healthy development of the family. Through a series of researches, symposiums, educational events and public campaigns, we hope to achieve the following objectives:

• Policy influence: to speed up the implementation of a family policy and to provide a local framework for family impact assessments of public policies.
• Service development: facilitate cross-disciplinary service innovation to strengthen our families.
• Engagement of the business sector: to support the business sector on family friendly practices and to promote work-life balance through their staff engagement activities.
• Capacity building: to build capacities on individual, family, organisation, community levels in order to create a family-friendly social environment.

For detailed information regarding the Family Wellness Project, please refer to “Family Wellness Booklet”.

• PDF Version (Available in Traditional Chinese only)
• Text Version (Available in Traditional Chinese and English)