In recent years, Mother’s Choice continued to invest in the quality of our services. The major projects included the following.
Expanding the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths tool to Children and Youth Services
This “gold standard” of casework assessment, Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (“CANS”), is a standardized reporting tool that guides service planning by assessing holistically the needs and strengths of individual children and their families with the primary objective of permanency, safety and improved quality of life. The tool allows us to rate and monitor the complexity and progress of a child’s case and provides us with a reliable way to determine whether children are being served with the right intensity of care, and whether that care leads to positive outcomes.
Having developed a Hong Kong version of CANS for children 0-6 years old, we fully embedded the tool into our case management processes and used to assess each child in our care to track the effectiveness and consistency of our programs and services.
Expanding Comprehensive Sexuality Education to “Targeted” and “At Risk” Youth
Adapting our evidence-based school CSE curriculum, we developed, and piloted a five-session CSE small group program for youth “at-risk” of crisis pregnancy focused on youth without stable caregivers. We were able to successfully engage peer agencies to collaborate on this program including Social Welfare Department Children and Juvenile Homes, S.K.H. St Christopher’s Home, International Social Service Hong Kong, and Shine Skills Centre under Vocational Training Council (“VTC”). A majority of youth in this target group experienced different degrees of trauma or have special needs which negatively impacted their capacity in making healthy decisions in their intimate relationship to care for children. This goal is to empower targeted youth with sexual health knowledge, value reflection capacity and communication skills to make and execute healthy decision that effectively prevent crisis pregnancy.
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*Pregnant Girls Services
The Mission of our Pregnant Girls Services (“PGS”) is to provide a safe place where pregnant girls in crisis are embraced, equipped, and empowered for a hopeful future. Every year, we support hundreds of vulnerable girls who have nowhere to turn. We offer the girls and their families non-judgemental loving support, equip pregnant girls with accurate information and knowledge on natal care and sexual health, and empower them to make informed decisions of case management, programs and the PGS hostel, our unique residential care home for high-risk cases. Interested for a virtual tour of our PGS, check this video out.
*Comprehensive Sexuality Education
Our sexuality education team partners with schools, youth centres and juvenile homes to develop a comprehensive sexuality education (“CSE”) eco-system model that empowers adolescents and key adults in their support network, including social workers, parents, teachers, house-parents, with knowledge, skills and behaviors to make healthy decisions that effectively prevents crisis pregnancy.