Chairman’s message

Dear Reader, Since my returned from the U.S. for almost two years now. I came to aware that Hong Kong provides a stressful environment for living. Wherefore, the increase of reports on suicide, violence and abuse in recent years, it calls for a great demand of emotional and mental health supports. As far as I know, there are two types of mental health services in Hong Kong – one is hospital based for treating the acute and the other one is community based psychiatric rehabilitation provided by NGOs. But there is a lack of mental health services in primary health level such as early detection and intervention. On the hand they may mainly supported by private sector which is specialized in psychiatry but this only confined to diagnostic and screening test and treatment. There is a lack of comprehensive assessment for psychological and mental health problems. So the involvement of family participation is that family members are also vulnerable to specific mental disorders as a result of shared genetic and environmental factors, which are prone to be triggered by the added stress of caring for a person with a mental illness or any excessive stress to the household environment from manifestations of the person with MI. In addition, family support to the person with MI is crucial as it can enhance the recovery of the illness in long term. Therefore, the proposed framework is to involve the family members working closely with professionals so as to support the person with MI during the treatment process. Some other cases suffering from psychosocial disturbance are considered as borderline or not eligible for receiving any mental health services. Examples are interpersonal difficulties, poor social skills, poor coping skills, antisocial behaviour or poor in vocational achievement. This group of people is considered as vulnerable or potential to develop mental health problems if a delay in detection of the condition which will lead to no treatment. Our goal is to identify the needs of intervention and to develop a continuous support to the person and family members in community. Each case will be managed by one of our team member with relevant professional backgrounds so as to ensure appropriate resources or support can be provided.

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