SS4115 Integrated
Social Work Practice
Leung Suk Ching,Cathy 5056
Chan Wai Ching, Amy 5055
Cathy 5056
朱茵 5055
Fung Ki Ho, Ben 5055
Chan Ka Lai, Hazel 5058
Nokia 5056
Kat 5055
Cheung On Shing ,Richard 5049
4620
4742
4620
7105
2750
1627
3900
7210
4765
Outline
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Introduction of Integration
Rationale of Integration
Information about three service units
IFSC
Youth
 Tai Po Youth Outreach team (大埔地區青少
年外展社會工作隊)
 香港小童群益會 (The Boys’ & Girls’ Club
Association of Hong Kong)
Elderly
 Social Centre for Elderly (SE) in Lai King
 Yuen Yuen home (elderly home)
Division of Labour
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We are divided into three groups for
interviewing the SW in fields:
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IFSC
Youth
Elderly
Evaluate the models in those organizations
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Advantage and Disadvantage
Comment from SW
Introduction of integration
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Policy on integration
Rationale of integration
Policy on integration(1)
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White paper –social Welfare into the
1990s and Beyond (1991.p.27)
The government plans that children and
youth centres, outreach social work and
school social work “be integrated” and
operated on a neighbourhood basis so
that young people in the same area may
be served by the same team of worker
Policy on integration(2)
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For example, Integration of Children and
Youth Centre Services (1994, p.16)
Report on Review of CYS
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“the working party concludes that children
and youth centres should adopt a “holistic “ or
“total-person’ approach in addressing the
need s and problems of the youth population,
by looking at a young person in his total life
situation”
Rationale 1: Service fragmentation
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Distinct service boundaries and division of
labour
Linkage and cooperation among different
service were insufficient
Highly specialized in practice
Rationale 2: Service duplication
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In the past, the service cooperation was
more focus on individual service unit level
Less cooperation and coordination among
different services in the community
Waste and duplication of resources
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Service duplication
Manpower duplications
Rationale 3: Service Gap
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Complication and complexity of service
needs
.The rigid service boundaries lead to the
negligence of &unresponsiveness to the
service needs
Rationale 4: Rigidity
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Manpower management
Resource allocation
Policy Manpower and resources of
different services
Not easily and flexibly deployed among
services units, so create waste
Rationale 5: Unresponsiveness
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Unresponsive to community need
Centralized planning hindering service
units from a quick respond to special &
urgent community needs or crises
Rationale 6: Mobilize the
development of services providers
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Under the effect of Plurality diversity(多元化), it
result in more diversity to interpret the service
needs Integration of different models
Introduce the concept of generalist “ 通才”and
integrated practitioner (綜合實務工作者)
Introduce more humanistic element , e.g. user
participation
Example of Service Unit (1)
Integrated Family Service Centre
(IFSC)
The models of IFSC (1)
Method-oriented integration
 Case, group and community work
For example, 3 levels of providing services:
 Family Counseling (FC): counseling service,
case
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Family Support(FS):support service, holding
groups
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Family Resource (FR): provide resource,
promote the service to community such as mobile
counter and care hotline
The models of IFSC (2)
Profession-oriented integration
 Different professions join together
For example, in our centre
 Elderly CR case: social work & doctordo
health assessment
 Suspected mental problem: social work &
clinical psychologist (CP)  do metal health
assessment to the client
The models of IFSC (3)
Agency-oriented integration
 Different agencies join and work together
For example, in our centre
 1. Community talk (防騙防盜): our centre &
police
 2. Parenting talk (parent in school): school
& our centre
The advantages of integration
Family resource (FR): develop volunteer service
develop service in community and do some
prevention
 Concept: early identification
 do immediately intervention if anything has been
happened in the community
 Efficiency: divide into 3 levels of integration in
family setting
 Clear structure
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The disadvantages of
integration
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No specific service / centre provided: New
arrival and single parent
‘integrated’ worker: adaptation of FSC
worker
 Can the worker integrate their knowledge
and skills in case, group and community
work
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Difficulties in implementing
integrated practice
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Manpower: do not have enough manpower
to provide services in IFSC
Agency argument: handle one caseNGOs
& SWD shirk responsibility no agency
handle this case
How to solve the difficulties
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Staff training: provide different trainings
such as skills and knowledge to the staff
Staff meeting: share concern and difficulty
 discuss the issue and give advices among
the workers
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Interesting sharing (1)
Workload in IFSC: heavy workload
Ex. Manpower management, community
development
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Social pressure for social worker:
 shirk responsibility (atmosphere)
 Client complaint ↑
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Interesting sharing (2)
Relationship between SWD and NGOs:
 past: partnership, now: donator (SWD) and
receiver (NGOs)
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Change of case nature: tangible cases↑,
counseling cases↓, long-term cases X
Example of Service Unit(2)
Youth
Models of Integration
1) Service/ Worker – oriented
Integration
2) Profession – oriented Integration
3) Method – oriented Integration
4) Agency-oriented integration
5) Locality-oriented integration
Service/ Worker – oriented Integration
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Different workers join together:
- School worker & Outreach worker
- School worker has to work with social welfare worker
as they would provide some group work to school
Different service units join together:
- Ng Yuk Secondary School & Tai Po Youth outreach
team
- Hong Kong Children & Youth Services: Jockey Club
Heng On Integrated Children & Youth Services Centre
& KCRC (九廣鐵路公司 )
Con’t
- Hong Kong Children & Youth Services: Jockey
Club Heng On Integrated Children & Youth
Services Centre & Scout Association of Hong
Kong
- Hong Kong Children & Youth Services:
Jockey Club Heng On Integrated Children &
Youth Services Centre & Government (Youth
Pre-employment training program)
Example
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Ng Yuk Secondary School (五育中學)
would work with Tai Po Youth Outreach
team (大埔地區青少年外展社會工作隊) as
sometimes the outreach team would
have contact with the students who
study in Ng Yuk, therefore, the
outreach worker would come to school
and organize group work and then refer
case to school worker.
Profession – oriented
Integration
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Different professionals join together
- Social worker & Teachers
- Social worker & Polices (反黑組)
- Social worker & Psychiatrist
- Social worker & Adventurer (歷奇導師)
- Social worker & therapists
- Social worker & Psychologist
- Social worker & University professor
Method – oriented
Integration
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Different methods deal with clients’
problems
- Case
- Group
- Community work
- Therapeutic group
- Interest Class
- Volunteerism
Agency-oriented integration
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Youth work agency + limited company
- e.g. 香港小童群益會 (The Boys’ & Girls’ Club
Association of Hong Kong) + 香港聯合利華有限公司
Youth work agency + hospital
- e.g. 香港小童群益會 (The Boys’ & Girls’ Club
Association of Hong Kong) + 明愛醫院兒童及青少年科
Youth work agency + Media Communication Unit
- e.g. 香港小童群益會 (The Boys’ & Girls’ Club
Association of Hong Kong) + RTHK Corporate
Communications Unit
Example
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A project call ‘聯合利華豐盛童盟計劃’ is a co-work by
香港聯合利華有限公司 and 香港小童群益會 (The Boys’
& Girls’ Club Association of Hong Kong)
it aims at providing developmental
activities for the minorities
Locality-oriented
integration
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Youth work agencies work together
within Tai Wai
- Hotlines for HKCEE
e.g. Hong Kong Children & Youth
Services: Lung Hung Centre (隆亨中心)&
Tsung Tsin Mission of Hong Kong (崇真會)
Advantages of Integration
1) Understand the needs and problems of client more
comprehensive
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E.g. Student A has behavioral problem in school and
also played in the street at night. School social
worker can communicate with Out – reach worker to
discuss the case of student A.. Both of them can
know more the detail of A and has a better
intervention to A.
2) More chances for co-work that resources can be
utilized
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E.g. Outreach worker may have group work in school
that they help to provide direct service to students
instead of asking school worker to run the group as
his workload maybe too heavy. Then when there is a
need for case work, outreach worker can refer
Advantages of Integration
3) Use different perspectives to see the clients 
understand more
 E.g. Teachers more concentrate on students’
academic and worker more concentrate on student’s
feelings. They can share their opinion and help the
student in a full extent.
4) More comprehensive services for tackling their
needs
 E.g. Student has social problem who can receive a
counseling in case and also increase their social
network and learn social skills through group and
community work.
Disadvantages of Integration
1)
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Conflicts
Different professionals have their own perspectives
and tend to insist on their standpoints which is
different from social worker, therefore, conflicts
easily arise
- E.g. teachers tend to punish students and stop
their behaviors as fast as possible while social work
take a person-centered approach that focus on
their needs rather than their superficial problems
With different standpoints, people are less likely to
compromise a solution or it takes time to make a
consensus.
- E.g. Outreach workers concern more on clients’
needs while school social worker have to balance
Disadvantages of Integration
2) Lack of Manpower
 worker needs to do more works (case/ group/
community work)
 Workload increased
3) Compete for limited resources
 Due to lump-sum grant, workers in the same
centre has to compete for limited funding
that sometimes focus on quantity rather than
quality so that they can meet the requirement.
Difficulties in Implementing Integrated
Practice
1) Really Increase the communication between other
parities?
- Not necessary
- Although they are under the same centre, all worker
have their own job
- Not much communication time
2) Enough training?
- Workload Increase since worker need to do more
(case, group, community work)
- Gov. do not have enough training for worker
- Increase the pressure on them
How to face/ solve the difficulties
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Clarify one’s role and standpoints
- E.g. School worker has to set a baseline and stay
firm when working with outreach worker: to clarify
with them that she has to consider both benefit of
school and clients instead of only concerning the
clients
Do not have frequent contact so that conflicts will be
reduced
Comments
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Positive
People with similar belief can support each other
Complementary to each other
Provide variety service to clients
More options for clients to choose
Negative
Heavy Workload
Resources overlap
Quantitative instead of qualitative that neglect
clients’ need or minority’s need
Example of Service Unit (3)
Elderly Service Integrations
-Multi-level Intervention
-Horizontal Intervention
Multi-level Intervention
-provides diversified services to the
elderly→ cater to elderly different needs
-can be divided into preventive& remedial
work
Con’t
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Preventive work:
Methods: community work
 Target: people in the community
 Activities: A series of Educational Activities &
Health Talks e.g. the sources of stress, how to
relieve stress, how to be a happy elderly…etc.
→bring out the optimistic and positive message
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Remedial Work:
Methods: Case and Group
Target: Elderly
Activities:
A. group activities→
1. provide emotional support through group
counseling
2. Relieve elderly stress & depression
B. Case→
1.
2.
Provide emotional support through individual
counseling
Relieve Elderly Stress & depression
Horizontal Integration
Different services units serve the same kind of
clients
 Same clients but could have different needs
 Require cooperation or collaboration among
different units
→ provides holistic & suitable services to elderly
→ produce interdependence (互相依賴) &
symbiosis (共生) relationship between various
units
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Con’t
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Advantages of Models integration:
Cater to elderly different needs
Diversified services→ e.g. educational
activities, health talks→ promote the
importance of mental health in the elderly
Case & groups→ relieve elderly stress+
provide emotional support to them
Reduce the Stigma effects(標籤效應)
 Chinese tradition: elderly see “Mental
health” doctors= have mental problems
→elderly stress ↑
 Groups/ different activities →mutual
sharing among elderly → Stigma effects of
elderly referral to the mental health ↓+
elderly stress ↓
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Enhance service quality & efficiency
Focus on the basis of human(以人為本)
Get different services in one unit→ service
quality + efficiency ↑
-Disadvantages of models integration
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High demand on social workers
-demand social workers have professional &
different aspects of knowledge→ stress of
social worker↑
Lack of manpower → service quality +
efficiency ↓
- Provide diversified services, but manpower
not change → stress of social worker ↑
- Diversified services demand ≠ manpower
→service quality + efficiency ↓
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Elderly Centres
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Social Centre for Elderly (SE) in Lai King
Yuen Yuen home (elderly home)
Social Centre for Elderly (SE) in Lai
King
1. Cooperate with SE in Luk Yeung(綠楊)
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E.g. Training program for volunteers
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Ads: More flexibility of ideas and sharing of
experience
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Difficulty: Different expectation  different
elderly have different needs
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Elderly in Luk Yeung are richer, but the Elderly
in Lai King are poor
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Solution: built up a trustful relationship and
try to compromise
2.
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Cooperate with Lawyer E.g. will(平安紙), Insurance
agents (programme such as financial planning), Nurse,
Occupational therapist
Ads: giving more information to elderly
Enhance the competitiveness of the centre for various
professional consultation Difficulty: Boundary of
professional role and coordination”協調不同取向及專業
時有難度”
Solution: Clear expectation and needs
e.g. agreement with insurance agents for no hard sale
in the centre
3.
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Secondary, Clinic, College cooperate to launch
programme
E.g. Motivate the learning needs of elderly
Ads: decrease the workload of workers
optimal use of resource for sharing, modeling from
other institution for administration and operational
management
Disads: no existence of any reference model
Due to the limited resource and manpower, it is
difficult to handle any special or urgent need
Solution: referral to resources within network, e.g.
NECC
compromised of involved organizations
4. Cooperate with District Council, which directing
the topic in the territory, for example, the
elderly abuse problem will be follow by DECC
or district council office
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Under the progressive level , the
problem is referred to DECC  NEC 
SE
Ads: optimal use of resources, more effective
and efficient
Summary of the difficulties of
Integration
insufficient supporting of “ one-stop service”
SE is mainly responsible for the referral case, but it
found difficulty to meet the demand as the limitation
of resource and power
Not a regional leader
Lack of leading role
Passively running the programme
Interest conflict in DECC:
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low transparency to public: the no. of sponsor??
Inequality to enroll the activity
In the jointed activity of SE/NEC and DECC , DECC is in first
priority to entry
Administration problem
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Cooperation and coordiantion
Comments from SW
- Social workers as resources in SE
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Worker doubted the professional role of social workers in SE,
because:
1. Social workers in SE are doing well in networking,
professional in liaison, co-operating and holding
programmes, but lack of direct service provided by social
workers
2. Even they hold groups or programmes, they are mainly in
the nature of education; for cases, the part of remedial part
is done more, follow-up can be done too, but again, not
much direct services provided
In opposite, social workers in DECC and NEC can provide
more services in the nature lacked that are mentioned
above
Therefore, it’s not healthy for SE to run in that way,
services are mainly education, social work element is lacked
Con’t
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The functions of SE
Ads.: Good division of labour and specialization
Difficulty: SE is difficult to be NEC, because of
the problems of bidding funding and supporting
boundary
Possible solution: To take up sole responsibility
for its profits or losses. Because under the
subsidy and management of SWD, the running
of the centre and its rationale is difficult to
implement
Yuen Yuen home (elderly home)
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Agency –oriented integration
E.g. work with two Children & Adult home and one
elderly centre on fundraising night party (慈善中秋耀圓
玄)
Advantage:
-understand different working style in the various
working areas
-share the proposal in order to reduce the workload of
the workers
-increase the information exchange and flexibility
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work with different agency such as commercial
company and educational institutions
E.g. work with different commercial company
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Flag day , “義賣愛心券”
Improvement on quality of living e.g. 電力改善工程
Work with school such as home visit service
Work with Social Welfare Department such as “老有所為”
& “全家網中人”
Advantage
Build up a good social network in the
community
 Promote the service/service unit to
the community
 Information exchange
 Well use of community resource
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Work with community issue
e.g. 服務協調會議 (社會服務署召開的，一年三
至4次) invite the agency head to discuss the
community issue such as 沙士
DECC ~discuss the issue with the different
service in the same community
disadvantage
Spend lots of time and manpower on
cooperation with the other service units
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Profession-oriented integration
E.g. Doctor, nurse, physiatrist, hospital (elderly
&psychiatric ) and Elderly Health Outreach
Program ( Department of Health)
advantage
convenience to the elderly
increase of communication with the other
professional can be better for the health care to
the elders
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Method-oriented integration
No special focus or limitation
depend on the needs of the client
e.g. case work
To deal with a negative thinking elder
CBT + Behavioral therapy ~ to change his
mindset and create new behavior at the same
time
More flexible
 Synergy effect
Disadvantage:
 Not specific to the service need
 Difficult to evaluate the program
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Reference
1. 編輯聖公會麥理浩夫人中心《社耕拾穗》編輯
小組，《社耕拾穗(2)-以社區為本, 綜合模式為
主的社區服務》。香港 : 聖公會麥理浩夫人中
心, 1999
2. 實踐綜合家庭服務的經驗分享. 2005-2006. 香
港社會服務聯會
3. 社聯季刊，《 服務整合》，香港社會服務聯會，
二零零二年春季
4. http://www.info.gov.hk/elderly/publications/19
99/vol1/p3.htm#
The End