Caregiver Support Project

The proportion of population aged 65 years or above is projected to rise from 17.8% in 2018 to 31.9% in 2038. There is an urgent need to meet the demand for sustainable care of frail elders.  It has been shown that one of the major causes for institutionalization of care recipients is caregiving burden. It is crucial for social workers and relevant human service professionals to have a thorough and accurate understanding of family caregivers’ needs and resources and to develop a caregiver-centered intervention plan to reduce their caregiving burden, to build up their capacity, and to enhance their quality of life.

In order to address this issue, the Elderly Fund partnered with City University of Hong Kong since 2019 to develop and validate the Caregiver Support Model (CSM) and Psycho-education Program on Empowerment (PP-E) with a Randomized Controlled Trial design. The key objectives of this project include:

  1. Provide social workers with a scientific and comprehensive working model that can match the needs and resources of family caregivers with suitable services and support.
  2. Develop and validate a psycho-education program on empowering family caregivers, with the goal of promoting family caregivers’ capacity building and their long-term well-being.

CSM is developed to systematically understand the needs and resources of family caregivers of frail elders through the Caregiver Need Assessment (CNA), and provide them suitable services through designing a personalized intervention plan and utilizing an online database on caregiver services and community resources. Regular follow-up meetings with caregivers are scheduled to monitor the progress of intervention and evaluate the effectiveness of the recommended services. 

PP-E is an 8-session psycho-education program for experienced family caregivers, which emphasizes capacity building and empowerment through peer-support intervention to facilitate the long-term well-being of caregivers. The eight sessions focus on rediscovering the meaning in caregiving and promoting self-care and transcendence.

The Caregiver Support project is led by Prof. Wing Lo, Dr. Marcus Chiu, Dr. Dannii Yeung, and Dr. Ben Li. The project is currently under way with collaboration with four NGOs.