SS4115 Integrated Social
Work Practice
Members:
Mandy
Pui Yee
Angie
Yi
Chui
Fannie
Annie
Agnes
50527280
50588470
50583344
50557744
50561470
50549824
50575111
50583485
Agenda
Historical development of integration of youth
service
Integration Model
Advantages of integration
Disadvantages of integration
Difficulties in implementing integrated practice
Solution and Future development of integration of
youth service
Comments on the practices and working models
Historical development of
integration of youth service
Historical development of
integration of youth service
1991 White Paper – Social Welfare
into the 1990s and Beyond
1994-6 C & Y – pilot & review study
1996 C & Y – phase II
2002 C & Y – phase III
1991 White Paper – social welfare
into the 1990s and beyond
During 90s, children and youth
services undergoing a critical change.
In April 1994, the child and youth
service center’s evaluation report
suggested to set up integration
service team.
Youth services is the first field using
the concept of “integration of
service”.
1991 White Paper – social welfare
into the 1990s and beyond
Integration of service included three
core services.
They are child and youth center,
outreaching, and school social work.
It aims at centralizing the resources
and provide services to meet the
needs of youth under different
environment
1994 – 1996 C & Y – pilot & review
study
Ten integration service team were set
up during 1994 – 1995
The evaluation report done by City
University revealed that the
integration service teams were useful
and met the needs of youth
1994 – 1996 C & Y – pilot & review
study
However, frontline social worker and
other worker need to put more effort
on extra workload and training.
Also, they experienced pressure and
the resign rate was high.
Other existing services may be
affected and so as other potential
service users.
1998 C & Y – phase II
2002 C & Y – phase III
Till 2001, there were totally seventy
teams serve the youth population.
There are several favorable
conditions of the integration of youth
service.
1998 C & Y – phase II
2002 C & Y – phase III
The team provide one-stop service
that tailor the youth’s needs with
limited resource.
It is a holistic approach.
Continuous evaluation and assessment
is needed for improvement.
1998 C & Y – phase II
2002 C & Y – phase III
Building up relationships and
collaborating with other agencies for
optimum use of resource.
Raise the quality of service.
Worker’s personal values and
preference.
1998 C & Y – phase II
2002 C & Y – phase III
However, the society is changing very fast,
the problems raised into the surface.
Unemployment, bankruptcy, and fluctuation
of house property increase the pressure in
the family.
Family, as one of the most important
socializing agent, failed to provide support
and care for the youth
1998 C & Y – phase II
2002 C & Y – phase III
“One school one social worker” policy
established and “Understanding
Adolescent Project” is implemented in
schools as preventive work.
Liaison to other agencies and centers
create extra workload for the
workers on writing proposals and
negotiation.
1998 C & Y – phase II
2002 C & Y – phase III
As resources available is limited,
some services and target groups
ineluctably cut and those deprived
usually have no say.
Some target groups will affect by the
quality of service and may drop out
from the service net.
Integration Model
Meaning of Integration
To change the different parts into a
new whole
Different parts will have some
adjustment to cope with the change
The quality of new whole is totally
different
Client-oriented integration
Methodist Centre
C & Y IT
Project Phoenix
(CSSS)
……
Models of integration
Project Phoenix
Client-oriented integration
One stop service for clients
Serving the different needs for same
clients
E.g. interest class held by C&Y IT,
members of project phoenix can also
join it. As clients of Project Phoenix
also a member of Methodist Centre
Agency-oriented / Locality-oriented
Integration
CSSS
Project Phoenix
(Methodist Centre)
New Horizon-Community
Social Service Youth
Youth Action Network
Supportive Service Scheme (The Boys' and Girls' Clubs
Enhancement Scheme
(Hong Kong
Association of Hong Kong) (The Evangelical Lutheran
Playground Association)
Church of Hong Kong)
Youth Support Scheme
(The Hong Kong
Federation of Youth Groups)
Agency-oriented Integration
Different agency joint together to
deal with same kind of client (Youth
Offender)
School and Project Phoenix join
together to hold a talk for youth
crime prevention
Locality-oriented
Using Hong Kong as one locality,
CSSS are actually joining different
agency work together
Method-oriented Integration
Using different
theories and
intervention
method to deal
with the case
E.g. social control
theory, family
therapy, system
theory
Group Work
Client
Case Work
Family Work
Profession Oriented Integration
For example, police and SW will work
together to deal with youth offender
problem.
Police refer cases  Project Phoenix
SW  Keep contact between each
other to prevent recommit.
Worker Oriented Integration
From a placement
student’s
experience, a client
can be served by
several SW in
different setting
Project Phoenix
SW
hostel SW
Client
Queen Mary
Hospital SW
School SW
Networking & Case Management
The finial result of
placement
student’s case was
referred to
Hostel’s social
worker to follow up.
referral
Project Phoenix
SW
referral
hostel SW
Client
referral
Queen Mary
Hospital SW
School SW
Models of Integration
C&Y IT (Tseung Kwan O)
The Hong Kong Federation
of Youth Group
Partial Integration
Before the integration, C&Y IT (TKO) was
three different units in the same centre.
The Hong Kong
Federation of
Youth Group
School Social work
Centre base
C&Y IT (TKO)
Out-reached
Horizontal Integration
After the integration:
• This IT is applying horizontal integration .
This team will work for clients with
multiple and comprehensive services.
Students
 Resident of that locality
 Youth at risk
• And this unit’s service varieties increase
Agency-orientated Integration
Different agencies join together to
hold some activities.
E.g. IT + NGOs to run some volunteer
work.
( Youth visits elderly centre and
provide services to them)
Profession-oriented Integration
• IT + Hong Kong Police Force
E.g. 龍城學堂
• IT + teachers
E.g. Provide different projects to primary
school (Understanding Adolescent Project
(Primary) )
Method-orientated Integration
C&Y IT (TKO) has case work, group
work, and variety programme
Not only focus on the youth, but also
his/her family
(Applying both family therapy and
other suitable theory for an individual
case)
Locality-orientated Integration
This C&Y IT uses locality oriented
integration to solve the problem of
Client-orientated Integration
C&Y IT (TKO) is providing a one-stop
service for her clients
It serve youth from both high income
family and the low income family.
This integration is in the view of
client’s characteristics in that
locality.
Advantages of integration
Advantages in three perspectives
For the centre
For the service users
For the future development
For the centre
Resources
More flexible of funding uses, the centre can
decide how much they spend on which area. For
example, if there is some emergency need in
school services, they can transfer some funding
to that area directly.
Wide use of the facilities, save some resources
e.g. the ABC training equipments can be used by
different teams
Staffs and workers
They can gather different perspectives
by other social workers. As they are all
experts in different fields before
integration.
Each team are supervised by one person
in-charge, it can facilitate
communication between different
workers, so, it can strengthen the cooperation among workers. And team
spirit can be built up.
The human mobility is higher after
integration. As different members
are in the same teams, so it is easier
to mobilize workers to different
teams.
Management
There would be one supervisor for
different teams within the agency, the
working system would be the same and it
avoids duplicate of works and
contradictions of the system
For the service users
One-stop service
It provides them with different kinds of
services, they can find the most suitable
service within one centre e.g. most of
the immigrants are afraid to ask for
help, once the centre has approached
them, suitable service can be provided
and no referral is needed
It is more convenient for them to enjoy
different kinds of service within one
centre. i.e. service varieties increased
One of the advantages of service
integration is the effect of
normalization of the problems of
service recipients so that they will
not feel being excluded as a special
clientele in the helping process.
For the future development
Clear long terms goals can be made in the
agency
Plans can be made more easily within the
centre so that they can go step by step
They have clear ideas about the needs in
that community so that they can provide
the most suitable service for them
Disadvantages of integration
Disadvantages in three perspectives
For the centre
For the service users
For the future development
For the centre
For workers / staffs
workload increase (as they said
that they need to share the work in
the center. e.g.: an out-reach worker
not only do the out-reach work, but
also need to take part of programmes
held in centre.
For the centre
the numbers of staff increase,
therefore, there are communication
barrier between a large numbers of
staff, and it is more difficult and
time-spending for them to build up
the team spirit and cooperation. If
there is not enough communication, it
would become “staff does things in
his/her own way” (各自為政、分裂)
For the centre
For Staffs and worker
 If there is no school worker from
A agency, or there is no school
worker cooperative with A agency,
then the A agency’s school team
worker need to sell their programme
or project to the school every
semester. It seems like something we
talk in Chinese term: 爭生意. It also
increase the workload and stress for
the for the worker.
 The focus point of a youth center
would not only be “youth”, but also the
overall needs of the community which
they serve. Therefore, when there is
change, special incident, or other
things else which affect the
community, the center need to bear
the responsibility about it. As a
result, workload increase.
 As there are many different kinds
of needs or services about the youth
in the center, the worker need to
have more training for them, it would
increase their stress too.
For the service users
The service user would ask: Where is the
worker? They think that the worker in
center in not enough for helping or serving
them. (It is because after integration of a
youth center, the focus would not be “drop
in service”, so the needs of members in
center would be neglected easily.
Is it really all the service is included in the
integrated youth service?
In fact, the youth-at-risk would be ignored
in this integration. For example: the IT
center open at 2-10p.m., however, many
night-youth would have activity after
10p.m., therefore, the center need to set
another team for the nigh youth but not
integrated.
For the service development
Nowadays, the center and the
government do not really catch the
direct of the integrated youth
service.
However, the integration of youth
really have advantage, there for, the
solving methods are needed and would
be presented in the following parts.
Difficulties in implementing
integrated practice
Difficulties
Inadequate understanding of IT service:
-As the integration model of youth
service is a new concept when compare
with other mainstream welfare services
(e.g. school social work, family service,
etc.), they do not have much
understanding on the purposes and
contents of this new IT service mode for
youth.
Difficulties
-
In sum, their mindset is not well prepared
for this new service mode.
No clear guidelines for workers:
-there is no clear guidance to guide the
worker to perform practice in this
setting.
Difficulties -- Exclusion
It is difficult to channel youth at risk
into the mainstream youth services
-As IT services try to put all kind of youth
services together in order to make a
better use of resources.
Exclusion (Continue)
However, it is difficult to group all kind
of teenagers together. And some
misbehaviors of “youth at risk” can
not be tolerant by other service
users, as well as some staffs (centre
base)
Exclusion (Continue)
Youth at risk are excluded
As a result, outreaching programs are
being treated as a unique young
clientele who need special attention
and care, and hence different kind of
service.
Suggested Solution
And
Future development of integration of
youth service
Suggested Solution
Adjust workers’ mindset of integrated
service
-workers of ITs are expected to provide
services to young peoples in different
setting ,i.e. schools , children and youth
centers and on the street.
-workers had to work through a lot of
psychological , mental and communication
barriers
Suggested Solution
-Therefore, workers need to adjust their
mindset of working approaches such as
having to keep on improving themselves and
cooperating closely with their colleagues as
well as need to be skillful in team work
approach
Suggested Solution
A clear guidelines for workers
-At the formation stage, workers do not
know their roles because integration is a
new concept for them.
- a clear guidelines for worker can help
them to adapt the new working model.
Suggested Solution
Provide training course for the
worker
-under the integration, a worker need to
work at different setting, it mean they
need to learn more skills .(i.e., school
worker learn some outreach skills.)
Suggested Solution
Cooperation with other ITs
- during the integration process, different ITs
develop their own model and face to different
difficulties.
- also, each IT has their service targets based on
the district. However, service targets is mobility
to cross district.
-cooperation with other ITs not only can share
their experience of the integration ,but also the
exchange information of their same service
targets.
Future development of integration
of youth service
Consolidate the professional
cooperation pattern
Set up district integration service
center
Accommodate family issues into the
service area
Personnel matter and position
according to the change of needs
Comments on the practices
and working models
Client-oriented integration
(+)
Resources can be distributed more effectively
which service users save time on waiting for the
received services from the agency
Convenience for the client searching for the
service they wanted
(–)
Service provided to clients may not really fit the
needs of the clients
Agency-oriented / Locality-oriented
Integration
(+)
Different needs of the clients as well as agencies can be
completed more effectively
Linkage between different agencies have been built up,
which help the agencies to promote the programme in the
future
(–)
Different idea occurred based on different standpoint of
the agencies, limitations increased while implementing the
programme
Spend more time on preparation since it needs time on
coordination and compromise the opinions of different
agencies towards the programme
Method-oriented Integration
(+)
Clients’s needs could be solved comprehensively
(–)
Higher knowledge requirement on worker to deal
with client’s problem→ higher pressure on the
worker
Profession Oriented Integration
(+)
Provided a more comprehensive service to the
service users, which get more data about the
service user
(–)
Spend a lot of time on coordination arrangement
between different professionals
Different professionals have different
expectation and attitude towards the client’s
problem  conflict may be occurred
Worker Oriented Integration
(+)
Achieve the objective in a more completely which
different service units can take action at the
same time
(–)
More complicated on practicing the planned as
different professionals has different idea based
on their own professional knowledge
Required an effective and united cooperation
system between different units
Networking & Case Management
(+)
Client’s needs/problem can be solved as receiving
multiple kinds of services
(–)
May difficult for the clients to adapt another new
professionals and service provided
Ideal v.s. Reality
IDEAL
The originally idea of integration is to
provide a holistic and total care for
clients.
REALITY
Provide services for fulfilling the
requirements in FSA rather than
provide a holistic, comprehensive and
one stop services for clients
For example, C&Y IT (TKO) are
supposed to provided services for all
youths at that locality. However, they
are actually putting their emphasis on
providing services for high income
group rather than low income group.
It is because they want to earn more
money to maintain centre’s operation.
Is it really perfect integration?
Who are begin
isolated in the IT
centre?
Ans: Youth-at-risk
Youth-at-risk (邊青、夜青)
For example: HKFYG is C &Y IT centre, a worker said
that the parents think that the youth-at-risk would
hurt their children, therefore, the IT centre seem not
really welcome youth-at-risk. And also, the night-youth
(夜青) would have activity after 10p.m., however, there
is no IT centre would open after 10p.m..
So, there is a out-reach centre of HKFYG in TKO and
TW which are apart from the IT center.
On the other hand, the IT center day-out-reach
worker(日展社工) would have cooperation with the
night-out-reach worker(深宵外展社工).
 In a word, what the interesting point is
worker could have cooperation of the
youth-at-risk service, but do not have
integration. Maybe the culture is really
different between the youth-at-risk and
the common youth, therefore, it is really is
a challenge of the integration of youth-atrisk to youth service.
Maybe we can call it is worker
cooperation but not integration.
Reference
Hong Kong. Working Party on Review of
Children and Youth Centre Services (1994),
Report on review of children and youth
centre services / Working Party on Review
of Children and Youth Centre Services.
Hong Kong : Govt. Printer , pp37-43
Lo, T.W. (1997) Evaluation on the
implementation of the Review report on
children and youth centre services : full
report. Hong Kong : Govt. Printer
References
香港社會服務聯會，〈一切由「綜合」開始—--東涌新
體驗〉及〈青年綜合服務的挑戰與前瞻〉，《社聯季
刊》，二零零二年春季。