Research and Model Building: Simon K Y Lee Children’s Fund – FLY Project®
The Children’s Fund launched the 1st phase of Simon K Y Lee Children’s Fund – FLY Project® (“FLY”) in 2013, in accordance with its signature “Service – Research – Public Education” strategy. An evidence-based early intervention programme was devised by Prof Cynthia Leung of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Dr Sandra Tsang of The University of Hong Kong to enhance the learning and development of preschoolers aged 1.5 from deprived families before kindergarten entry.
Given the proven effectiveness of the programme and the success of the 1st phase, the Children’s Fund has then launched the 2nd phase in 2016/17, the 3rd phase in 2017/18 and the 4th phase in 2018/19 respectively to disseminate FLY® and encourage the social welfare sector to develop quality early intervention service for preschoolers from deprived families, thus narrowing the service gap.
The Children’s Fund has provided capacity building package, in addition to funding support, for NGO partners. This includes FLY® programme manual, staff training and consultation services. Staff of NGOs has been more professional, skillful and confident in providing early intervention service, thus improving the prospect of sustainability.
Around 1,000 dyads have be served under the four phases of FLY®. No. of NGO partners reaches 22 and all the 18 districts in Hong Kong have been covered.
FLY® contains 55 sessions, each comprising one hour of child-learning and one-hour of parent education, over a period of seven to eight months. It covers different aspects of child-development such as cognitive, preschool concept, language, social, gross and fine motor, behavior and parent-child relationship.
Funding amount (research, service and capacity building): $22M
To see the list of NGOs participating in FLY IV, please click here.