I’ve been working on the Jockey Club Carer Space Project (JCCSP) under Sau Po Centre on Ageing for almost three years, and it has been one of the most meaningful projects I have been part of. The project was initiated and funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, in partnership with the Sau Po Centre on Ageing and six NGO partners. The project aims to establish the carer-centric centers across the districts to provide timely and appropriate support to carers and their families.
Like many other large-scale community projects, the project encountered various challenges along the way. One is that our NGO partners have diverse interests and priorities in service delivery as well as differences in operational practices. To address this, we adopted a co-creation approach from the very beginning of the project. This approach has played an important role in fostering the spirit of collaboration with multiple stakeholders, including funders, NGO staff, and researchers.
Regularly co-creation workshops were organized in the first year of the project, which provided a collaborative platform for the close communications among different parties and helped us better understand partners’ needs and interests. In addition, this approach also ensured all the parties were involved in the decision-making process, which strengthened mutual trust and helped cultivate a sense of ownership across all levels.
Through this process, alignments were able to be achieved in key areas, including service provision, center operation protocols, and capacity building framework as well as the direction of IT platform development. These efforts laid a solid foundation for the success and ongoing development of the project.
By: Ms. Iris RUAN, Senior Research Assistant
Email: irisruan@hku.hk