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When I joined the Sau Po Centre on Ageing, I stepped into completely unfamiliar territory — no social science training, no prior experience in community care, and a mindset built entirely in the commercial IT world. Moving into ageing research required a profound shift in how I approach technology and design. (Image generated by Gemini 3.1 Pro) Here are three mindset shifts I experienced while building the IT platform for the JC Stand-by U project. Shift 1: From “Users” to “Families”In commercial IT, “users” are metrics on a dashboard. But here, I quickly learned that behind every database record is a caregiver, an older adult, and a family navigating stress. Designing our case management system meant realizing we aren’t just storing data—we are mapping out the real-life support journey of vulnerable people. Shift 2: From “Single Client” to “Ecosystem Design”In a typical commercial project, you design a system for one company with one set of rules. Here, our team do not provide the respite services directly—our partnering NGOs do. That means a rigid, one-size-fits-all system wouldn’t work. I had to shift from designing for a “single client” to designing an ecosystem that respects the unique workflows of different NGOs, while…

My Research Mandate As a researcher at CoA, I was tasked with evaluating the effectiveness of an Intergenerational Co-Learning program organized by the local NGO Mighty Oaks. My mandate was straightforward: to examine quality-of-life outcomes for older adults, academic and developmental benefits for students, and organizational gains. I came to measure outcomes. What I found, however, could not be fully captured by numbers alone. What the Shared Space Revealed The real learning came from simply sitting in the spaces where the program happened—tables at the perfect height for both child and elder, the hum of genuine attention, no expectations, no rush. Learning Flows Both Ways What struck me most was reciprocity. When activities started, children initiated conversation and made suggestions. Elders leaned in, genuinely interested. No one corrected or took over. But more than that, I watched the shift. When a child spoke, the elder’s whole body would settle into listening. When an elder shared something, the child’s eyes would widen with real interest. There was a quality of attention I rarely see in any context—one generation genuinely paying attention to the other. In one conversation, a child asked an elder a direct question about something they noticed. The elder…

I used to feel comfortable with numbers. Large datasets, statistical models, structured variables. They felt like a stable way to hold complexity, as long as I could find the right lens. At CoA, the work feels closer to people. I still work with surveys and data collection, but much of it now happens in shared space, in real time, with informal caregivers who bring their own pace, their own weight of experience. In focus groups, I notice how much is already happening before anything is asked. How people enter the room. Where they sit. Whether they speak or stay still. The way a space settles changes the way people settle into it. And then there are moments that do not quite become “data” in the usual sense. In one discussion, a caregiver becomes emotional while speaking. Another participant quietly offers tissues and leans in slightly. The conversation continues, but the room feels different after that. Not louder, just… held. Facilitation, for me, is often about noticing these small shifts. When to speak, when to pause, when to let silence stay a little longer than feels comfortable. Sometimes the most important part of a session is not in the questions at…

Housing is more than four walls. For older adults, it shapes daily functioning, health, and independence. Yet when it comes to measuring housing insecurity in this population, the field is still catching up. Our recently published systematic review in The Gerontologist examined how housing insecurity has been measured among older adults across existing literature. Screening over 1,300 articles and including 13 studies, we mapped six core dimensions captured by existing tools: housing unaffordability, instability, poor physical quality, inadequacy, lack or disrepair of housing durables, and poor neighborhood quality. Two findings stood out. First, age-friendly housing features, such as grab bars and accessible pathways, were almost entirely absent from the reviewed tools. As physical capacity changes with age, these features carry direct implications for older adults’ safety and independent living. Second, psychometric reporting was sparse: no study reported test-retest reliability, and validity evidence was largely informal. This review is the first of its kind focused specifically on older adult populations. We hope it lays the groundwork for developing purpose-built, validated instruments that reflect the realities of aging, across diverse cultural and policy contexts. Read the full paper (Open Access): https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnag130 By: Peiyi LU & Tianxin CAI Department of Social Work and…

My research interest in caregiving has grown from both academic engagement and lived experience. During my time working for JC Carer Space Project, I examined the challenges faced by carers, their unmet needs, and their interactions with community services. Yet this research became profoundly meaningful to me when I also became a carer myself. This transition allowed me to understand caregiving not only as a research topic, but as an embodied experience shaped by responsibility, uncertainty, emotional labor, and institutional constraints. It deepened my awareness that caregiving is never merely a private family matter; rather, it is a critical social issue that reflects how societies recognize and support invisible labor. My primary research interest lies in carers’ needs and in how these needs shape their willingness and capacity to use social services. Carers often encounter complex and evolving difficulties, including psychological stress, financial pressure, time conflicts, and limited access to reliable information. However, the existence of need does not automatically lead to help-seeking behavior. Many carers remain outside formal support systems. I am particularly interested in this gap between “having needs” and “using services,” as it reveals the broader social, cultural, and institutional barriers that influence carers’ decisions. By integrating…

Reflecting on my year-long journey with the Jockey Club Multicultural Carer Support project under the Sau Po Centre on Ageing, the most profound lessons I have learned are about how we position ourselves in the field and how we initiate natural conversations. 1. Prioritize Human Connection Over Project Promotion. It is natural for potential participants to feel hesitant or concerned when approached by a stranger. Initially, during outreach with our NGO partners, we used a direct opening line: “Hello, do you care for an elderly relative? We can help you.” While this straightforward approach might work for mainstream social work and research, it often raises suspicion among ethnic minority communities. We pivoted to simple, warm greetings like, “Hello, have a good day,” or “Enjoy your gathering.” This low-pressure approach broke the ice and naturally opened the door for genuine engagement. 2. Practice Sincere and Active Listening. Building deep trust is essential for uncovering caregivers’ authentic needs. One of my familiar strategies is asking participants about the meaning of their names. Through these conversations, I learned that one participant’s Arabic name meant “Lord of the Full Moon,” while a Punjabi name translated to “Peacefulness.” Sharing the meaning of my own name…

A Short Reflection by an “IT Person” on Finding Purpose at CoA As an IT System Specialist in CoA, I spent much of my time working on technical support and development work. That means I am more often facing screens, systems, and code rather than people, and I am a team member without a research background in a research centre. This makes me feel lost from time to time. There are times when I am really not sure if I am actually contributing to the team and what my work is for. That’s why on my desk in our office, I have placed some little ornaments, featuring some of my favourite illustrators and animations. They have diverse stories behind them, but all remind me of the key message: remember your initial aspiration and keep moving onward. (A photo of my desk) That is the mindset that I keep, and I believe that our teams at CoA share. In the JC Stand-by U project, the partnerships among different organizations are supporting families and caregivers, and I, as part of the IT team, am involved in helping with the design and operation of the IT Platform that stands behind and supports the…

As a researcher in health economics, I have always trusted numbers. Models, datasets, and statistical significance were my primary tools for understanding the world. I believed that with enough data, we could explain and evaluate almost everything. However, my experience with CoA has gradually changed this perspective. Through my involvement with CoA, I have had the opportunity to learn more about the daily realities of informal caregivers. Beyond the numbers, I began to see the emotional burden, time constraints, and complex decisions that caregivers face every day. These experiences cannot always be fully captured by equations or indicators alone. Working alongside CoA has reminded me that research should not only aim to measure impact, but also to reflect the real needs and lived experiences of people. It is not about replacing quantitative methods, but about grounding them in reality—ensuring that what we measure truly matters. This journey has been both humbling and inspiring. It has encouraged me to think more carefully about how research can better support caregivers and contribute to meaningful change in the community. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn from CoA, and I look forward to continuing this journey of bridging numbers and real-life impact.…

On bringing data science and philosophy to the hardest questions in elder care When people learn I have a double major in Data Science and Philosophy, the response is usually a polite pause. The two feel, at first glance, like they belong to different worlds — one rigorous and quantitative, the other speculative and slow. But the longer I work at Sao Po Centre on Ageing researching caregiver burden, the more I believe that this combination is precisely what care for older adults needs most. My philosophical education was shaped largely by the classical Chinese and Buddhist traditions. One idea that stayed with me comes from a very old distinction in Chinese thought: the difference between 道 (dào) — the way, the underlying principle — and 術 (shù) — technique, strategy, method. A practitioner who accumulates shù without dào becomes adept, perhaps impressive, but ultimately unmoored. They optimise without knowing what they are optimising for. But beyond this structural distinction, what these traditions gave me was something more foundational: a sense of what a life well spent actually looks like. Confucian thought, at its core, holds that the highest expression of being human is 仁 (rén) — benevolence, a genuine orientation toward…

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…