Good Life Good Death
In Hong Kong, end-of-life care services have been promoted in the health and social sectors for nearly 20 years. However, the opportunity for engagement and preparation at early stage is always missed. Most services focus on addressing the case needs at terminal stage in institutional settings. The existing promotion and delivery of Advanced Care Planning (ACP) initiated by doctors and nurses is inadequate due to their limited time with patients. Community members face barriers when seeking advice, information and services to plan for their end-of-life matters including ACP, Advance Medical Directives (AMD), Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA), will, funeral arrangements, etc. Thus, there is a lack of awareness of community needs and an absence of a systemic mechanism for facilitating dialogues on life and death issues. The coordination and integrative support with community healthcare service and palliative care service are also lacking in the community. A serious delink is evident between aging in place and end-of-life care service support in community.
In January 2024, Community Care Plan Project has therefore been piloted to make a paradigm shift from professional dominance, strengthening community capacity to developing a more compassionate community, with funding support from ZeShan Foundation. We have formed a partnership team with Blessing Community and HomAge, which collaborates with district-based Time Bank members and our NGO partners, including People Service Centre in Sham Shui Po, Yang Memorial Methodist Social Service Centre in Wong Tai Sin, Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Tseung Kwan O Aged Care Complex in Tseung Kwan O. It is a co-creation process with engagement and active participation of various stakeholders through community listening, exchanging views, knowledge, skills, reflective learning and idea alignment.
The quality of life and death could be enhanced in the community by early identification in health and social environment changes. The timely support and pre-planning intervention will benefit not only individuals but also their caregivers. It is also an opportunity for starting dialogues and empowering the ownership of ACP and end-of-life matters. We also believe that community-based time bank members could play a stronger role as both buddies and link workers to bridge community members, caregivers, NGOs and service providers in different districts in the long run. This will become a new compassionate community model for active living and aging in place with end-of-life support, by which the popularization of advance care planning & end-of-life care services could be driven and mobilised for the community members and more importantly, by the members themselves.
Community Care Plan Project Team
Forget Thee Not
In Hong Kong, end-of-life care services have been promoted in the health and social sectors for nearly 20 years. However, the opportunity for engagement and preparation at early stage is always missed. Most services focus on addressing the case needs at terminal stage in institutional settings. The existing promotion and delivery of Advanced Care Planning (ACP) initiated by doctors and nurses is inadequate due to their limited time with patients. Community members face barriers when seeking advice, information and services to plan for their end-of-life matters including ACP, Advance Medical Directives (AMD), Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA), will, funeral arrangements, etc. Thus, there is a lack of awareness of community needs and an absence of a systemic mechanism for facilitating dialogues on life and death issues. The coordination and integrative support with community healthcare service and palliative care service are also lacking in the community. A serious delink is evident between aging in place and end-of-life care service support in community.
In January 2024, Community Care Plan Project has therefore been piloted to make a paradigm shift from professional dominance, strengthening community capacity to developing a more compassionate community, with funding support from ZeShan Foundation. We have formed a partnership team with Blessing Community and HomAge, which collaborates with district-based Time Bank members and our NGO partners, including People Service Centre in Sham Shui Po, Yang Memorial Methodist Social Service Centre in Wong Tai Sin, Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Tseung Kwan O Aged Care Complex in Tseung Kwan O. It is a co-creation process with engagement and active participation of various stakeholders through community listening, exchanging views, knowledge, skills, reflective learning and idea alignment.
The quality of life and death could be enhanced in the community by early identification in health and social environment changes. The timely support and pre-planning intervention will benefit not only individuals but also their caregivers. It is also an opportunity for starting dialogues and empowering the ownership of ACP and end-of-life matters. We also believe that community-based time bank members could play a stronger role as both buddies and link workers to bridge community members, caregivers, NGOs and service providers in different districts in the long run. This will become a new compassionate community model for active living and aging in place with end-of-life support, by which the popularization of advance care planning & end-of-life care services could be driven and mobilised for the community members and more importantly, by the members themselves.
Community Care Plan Project Team
Forget Thee Not