Chinese approaches to understanding and building resilience in at-risk children and adolescents.
This article discusses the prevailing Chinese belief systems that have bearings on the perception and practices of promoting resilience among children and youth in a major city in China. It briefly describes a huge social intervention program entitled "Understanding the Adolescent Project" to combat the problems among grade 7 students identified as adolescents at risk from 2001 to 2004 in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. A critical review of the problems encountered by social workers in the delivery of the program is presented to support the move to provide the preventive program for grade 4 students with clinical symptoms on a screening tool for identification of at-risk status. Starting in 2005, a large-scale positive youth development program was being developed for all secondary one to three (grades 7 to 9) students. Encouraging results of the evaluation studies demonstrated the effectiveness of this new preventive program, entitled Positive Adolescent Training through Holistic Social Programs.
Lee
Tak-Yan
TY
Department of Applied Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China. sstakyan@cityu.edu.hk
Shek
Daniel T L
DT
Kwong
Wai-Man
WM
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D044466:Asian People; D001290:Attitude; D002648:Child; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000208:ethnology*; D012072:Religious Philosophies; D012919:Social Behavior; D012922:Social Change