" Excellence in work comes from diligence and is lost through play; achievements arise from contemplation and are ruined by recklessness." (Tang Dynasty - Han Yu)

Vigilance and Perseverance: Running on the Forefront of Mental Health

On June 1, 2024, Richmond Fellowship of Hong Kong (RFHK) celebrated its 40th Anniversary of service in Hong Kong. Over the past four decades, the Fellowship has provided services to over 500,000 people, witnessing countless changes in the society, including moments of ‘leaps’, ‘transitions’, ‘stability’, and ‘challenges’.

At forty, we are determined to strive for our vision in providing mental health services. In the past year, the Fellowship has continued to pursue excellence, remaining vigilant to the ever-changing service needs. We value our service users’ participation, leadership, and innovation, also walking alongside our service users through challenges. As greater emphasis is placed on mental health in the context of changing environment, we also show higher concerns for mental health. We wish the Fellowship to continue growing alongside Hong Kong and reaching new heights for our fifty, sixty, or even seventy years.

Resilience in Adversity: Rebirth through Storms

To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of RFHK, we organised the ‘40th Anniversary Celebration cum Opening Ceremony of the New Jade Manufacturing Centre’ on June 1, 2024, which added dual significance to the celebration. Our Integrated Vocational Rehabilitation Services Centre (IVRSC), New Jade Manufacturing Centre (NJMC), located in Chai Wan, suffered from catastrophic damage during the hazardous rainstorm in September 2023. The flood level of 1.6 meters completely destroyed the 12,000 square feet facility, and 200 service users suddenly lost their rehabilitation training facilities.

I would like to express my special appreciation to our staff for their spirit of cooperation when facing adversity, and showed support to the damaged service unit and tirelessly working for the welfare of our service users. Colleagues not only arranged temporary training venues for rehabilitation, but also completed major repairs and reconstruction of the unit within an astonishing period of nine months, leading to a newly renovated facility for service users to continue vocational training and rehabilitation activities.

The Chinese idiom "A strong wind reveals the strength of grass" reflects how this experience has united our staff at all levels, prioritizing the benefit of service users and strengthening our team spirit. The Ceremony entitled ‘SUN’ was co-created by staff after the flood, symbolizing their hope for the centre's reopening, where service users can ‘Smile’, staff are ‘United’, and bring about ‘New’ changes, embarking on a new journey after the rainstorm. Ms. Patricia WOO, District Social Welfare Officer (Eastern/Wan Chai), Social Welfare Department, was invited as one of the officiating guests to witness the newly renovated, bright, and clean NJMC. All the participants who joined the ceremony on-site and online were deeply touched and highly excited. We would like to thank various community organisations, local churches, corporate sponsors, media partners, the Providence Foundation Limited, and the Youth Square for their kindness and generous support.

We are delighted to witness our team and service users overcome challenges together. In addition to a series of celebratory activities, a special webpage for the ‘40th Anniversary of RFHK’ has been launched, featuring eight videos with different services showcase and recording our 40 years of services. Welcome to visit our website to learn more about the activities and witness our growth with service users (https://www.richmond.org.hk/en/richmond-40th-anniversary).

Transmitting Knowledge and Values: Cultivating Cross-Generation Talents

This year, we faced significant structural challenges in human resources, with various industries experiencing talent movement and competition among organisations. Through a series of human resources strategies, we have managed to keep our vacancy rate far below the sector average. However, knowledge management and the transmission of service values have become increasingly difficult with personnel changes. Maintaining excellence in service quality has become another important challenge.

As an organisation dedicated to serving people-in-recovery, we have always valued talent training and viewed the entire sector as a part of our mission to cultivate specialised talent. As the requirements of serving as competent mental health service worker is not simple, in that not only counseling skills but also a macro perspective on service development is expected. Executive personnel also need to possess exceptional management mentality and decision-making abilities.

By means of regular job rotations, we offered staff to work in one position for a reasonable period before rotating to another roles within the Fellowship. This approach not only reduces stress of adapting to a new organisational culture if they change jobs, but also allows them to focus on broadening their perspectives and enhancing new skills to prepare for advancement within the Fellowship. By way of the CEO Shadowing program, we have empowered potential staff with management skills to gain an overview of the scope and visions of senior management, strengthening their executive decision-making mindset and facilitating the alignment of values and practices between mid-level and senior level. The training courses provided new managers with practical skills in staff recruitment, complaint handling, service proposal writing, risk management, and crisis intervention, enriching their professional and practical knowledge of senior management. We also enhance the core competencies of newly hired professional staff through systematic training to meet the needs of their positions. In recent years, we have launched staff retention program, by offering subsidies as tangible rewards to encourage staff with outstanding performance to continue their excellent service.

This year, we were selected as one of the five beneficiary organizations to participate in ‘Jockey Club InnoPower Social Welfare Fellowship’, with five senior staff members joining a six-month training program since May 2024, followed by project implementation in the coming year. This training program covered two major overseas study trips and a few local trainings, focusing on ‘Adaptive Leadership’ at Harvard University and ‘Social Services and Big Data Analysis’ at Tsinghua University in Beijing. We aim to contribute to impactful outcomes in talent development and workforce planning in the Fellowship and the social service sector.

Promoting International Exchange in the Sector: Joint Advocacy for Mental Health

RFHK was established with the support of International Richmond Fellowship, a global network of non-profit organisations dedicated to promoting mental health and community care. Currently, Richmond Fellowships have been setup in locations such as Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Macau, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and India.

The 14th Asia Pacific International Mental Wellness Conference, organised by RFHK, has taken place from 7 to 9 December, 2023, at the UOW College Hong Kong, with Mr. Ricky CHU Man-kin, Chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission, officiating the event. Over 300 professionals attended the conference, with theme of ‘Mental Wellness: Recovering Citizenship’. In addition to local and international thought leaders sharing latest service development on mental wellness, professors and practitioners from the Yale University School of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong, and PeerZone, an international social enterprise, New Zealand also delivered keynote speeches on latest research on Recovering Citizenship. The conference featured various plenary sessions, panel discussions, round table talk, post-conference workshops, training platforms, and performances by peer supporters, people-in-recovery, and their carers. The group discussion offered room for scholars and professionals from different regions to share their research findings and exchange practice wisdom. In addition, delegates from the United States, New Zealand, India, Macau, Taiwan, and Hong Kong also presented papers on latest mental health services. This conference has also been accredited with CPD points by Hong Kong Academy of Social Work (HKSWA Ref. H0013).

In promoting ‘Recovering Citizenship’, we participated at the 3rd International Conference on Citizenship and Recovery-Oriented Peer Support Work, held online on June 19, 2024, presenting research papers and sharing work experiences. The ‘Recovering Citizenship’ research team continues working with mentors from the Yale University, inviting Dr. Helen Hamer to serve as a honorary research advisor to train our staff and peer support leaders, quantifying and deepening the promotion of this program. A research paper on ‘Development and Testing of Citizenship Measures (Chinese)’ has been accepted for publication by the American Journal of Psychiatric Rehabilitation this year. The recognition from international experts has greatly encouraged our work. We will continue to promote evidence-based practices, expanding the program through outreach to communities and various groups in the coming years.

Engaging People in Need: Responding to Social Needs

Through various specialised programs, we actively engage with people in need, promoting collaboration among government, business, medical, social, community, family, educational, and self-help organisations to respond to current social needs.

Funded by the Health Bureau, we have commenced service operation of ‘18111 - Mental Health Support Hotline’ since the end of 2023, averaging around 340 handled calls per day. As of September 30, 2024, we have handled over 92,000 calls.

Sponsored by the Advisory Committee on Mental Health, the ‘Project KoL’ Key Incentives of Living – Mental Health Support Project for Elderly in Residential Homes aims to enhance the mental health and quality of life of elderly residents by strengthening support from staff and the community. Collaborations include all-round wellness activities, counseling, service referrals, and staff training, intervening in various areas such as cooking, arts, gardening, and health management, serving a total of 20 residential homes in the community.

Invited by Johnson & Johnson (J&J), we have joined ‘Talent for Healthy Communities’ to strengthen the close collaboration between the business sector and social welfare organisations. Through pairing J&J specialists with our staff members, we have learned to explore how to identify the needs of ‘hidden youth’ and create diverse public education means to promote early help-seeking among young people with mental health issues.

Sponsored by the Arts Development Fund for Persons with Disabilities, Social Welfare Department, ‘MY LITTLE STORY – Recovery Journey Art Project’ aims to cultivate the interest of people-in-recovery, enhancing their artistic knowledge and skills in sand painting. A premiere Arts Exhibition event was organised in October 2024 to showcase the artistic talents of people-in-recovery and promote community art integration. The exhibition focused on the theme of sensory awareness and arts featuring a special sand painting exhibition to present the artistic achievements of the participants.

The Fellowship has also created a user-friendly mental health assistance platform by means of innovative project called "RE:bound" (https://rebound.richmond.org.hk), which provides useful mental health resources to the public, outreaching to more than 7,000 visitors. This platform has also organized a series of mental health seminars and sharing sessions called "RE:bound Classroom", along with mobile education stations in the community.

Funded by the Education Bureau, our clinical psychologists conducted the "Parent Workshop on Gatekeeper Training" for parents to enhance their awareness of children's mental health and strengthen their parenting skills.

Invited by Department of Social Work and Social Administration, the University of Hong Kong, sponsored by Hong Kong Jockey Club, we have participated in the "Holistic Support Project for Elderly Mental Wellness 'JoyAge 3.0', providing stepped-care mental health services for elderly facing depression and mental distress with evidence-based practice, including casework management and group activities, and training elderly peer ambassadors.

Sponsored by the Freemasons, the "Mission CIRCLE Project" aims to encourage people in recovery to demonstrate their strengths through a self-help organization model, promoting peer support and community recovery. As of this year, the project has completed three years of core member training, empowering them to organize self-help activities with self-determination, with IR-88 certification.

As this year marks the 40th anniversary of Richmond Fellowship, we have managed to overcome numerous challenges by turning to opportunity for growth. I would like to express my gratitude to all stakeholders, including Executive Committee and Sub-Committee members, Advisory Committee members, colleagues at all levels, family caregivers, people in recovery, volunteers, and community partners, for their continuous support towards our services and ongoing development. As we look forward to another 40 years, we will continue our collaborative efforts to advance mental health service and organization development, keep running on the forefront of mental health.