Multiple Family Group Therapy with Poor Chinese Families of Children Placed in Out-of-home Care in Hong Kong

Many children placed in out-of-home care in Hong Kong came from poor families with multiple problems. A majority of these families were living on a welfare subsidy and residing in a public housing estate unit or partitioned... [ view full abstract ]

Many children placed in out-of-home care in Hong Kong came from poor families with multiple problems. A majority of these families were living on a welfare subsidy and residing in a public housing estate unit or partitioned room. Most of them were single-parent families because of divorce, desertion, death and separation. Many parents suffered from physical and mental illnesses with multiple disabilities; some of them were drug abusers. The removal of children from their home, with the social worker’s intention of protecting the children’s welfare, may traumatize children and disempower parents. The interplaying effects of poverty and care experience of children and their parents may negatively affect the quality of parent-child relationships, specifically to disrupt the parent-child attachment. At present, out-of-home care services in Hong Kong emphasize on behavioral management to children and surveillance to parents. Little work has been done to respond to the developmental needs of children such as improve parent-child relationships and foster quality family time. In view of this service gap, the first phase of a service initiative, that adopted multiple family group therapy (MFGT) in an out-of-home care service in a local non-government organization, was launched in 2010 and the second phase was implemented from April 2012 to March 2014. It aimed at improving parent-child relationships, promoting quality family time, and empowering families for mutual help and mutual support. Based on the model adapted, we conducted three groups and served a total of 13 families in the first phase. Feedbacks were collected from the participants for further refinement of the adapted model. In the second phase, we ran five groups and served 30 families. We conducted a research study with a mixed methods design to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention strategy in achieving the intervention objectives. The findings showed that parenting stress of the parents was decreased after the group. The qualitative data from the parents and the children also indicated that changes at intra-family and inter-family levels. In intra-family level, new interaction patterns that promoted mutual understanding and effective communication were identified between parents and children. In inter-family level, a strong support network was built among families. Our service initiative has helped to change the work culture in out-of-home services in Hong Kong. We recommend that child welfare professionals should promote quality family life and foster parent-child relationships, rather than merely focusing on disciplining children and supervising parents.