Publications

J.C.DISI launched together with Hong Kong Council of Social Service the initiative of “Community Support for Carers” as the theme of the programmes of PolyU Jockey Club “Operation SoInno” Season 13, in which a series of seminars, co-creation workshops and a symposium is organised in search for innovative solutions to support carers in need. This report focuses on the proposal specific to The Revamp of the CarerEPS platform, one of the three Action Projects selected from a committee of judges to experiment how digital platform may support carers in Hong Kong during this digital era.

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Starting from 2022, under PolyU Jockey Club "Operation SoInno", J.C.DISI and the Hong Kong Council of Social Service jointly organised a series of programmes with the theme of “Community Support for Carers”. This report records the insights gained from the UI/UX design research to understand what are the needs of the older carers, volunteers and staff from Sai Kung District Community Centre when there is a mobile application that would be available to coordinate community support for carers in the rural districts.

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In 2023, during the "Action Project" phase of the PolyU Jockey Club "Operation SoInno" Season 15 themed “Shaping Dementia Care Culture”, J.C.DISI co-organised the “Property Management Service Training – Elderly (Dementia) Care Support Skills” course with the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Property Managers. This course provided frontline and mid-level property management practitioners with practical, dementia-friendly support skills. This report documents the pilot process and insights from the training course.

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With the support of the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund, the Good Seed, a social innovation training and funding programme, has incubated over a hundred projects to help people in need. As this remarkable programme approaches its conclusion, we have invited 36 of the awarded projects to compile the third book, “Seed Experiment 3.0”, which chronicles the stories and challenges of these social innovators in the areas of youth development, care for women, active aging, disability inclusion, mental health, daily home life, and environmental protection.

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Through co-creation workshops and user journey mapping, this project identified pain points and user-oriented recommendations to improve eye health care and prevent dementia-related ocular manifestations. In partnership with community NGOs, academic partners from the PolyU School of Optometry, and healthcare consultants, this project aims to enhance understanding of the complex interplay between eye health and dementia among elderly individuals and their caregivers, thereby improving long-term eye health care and alleviating the impact of dementia. In particular, this project seeks to address a gap in community awareness by highlighting that conditions including age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, and diabetic eye disease indicate increased risks of dementia that call for earlier consultations.

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Small Group Homes (SGHs) is a social service that aims to provide family-like care to children until they are able to reunite with their families or live independently. With children from different backgrounds sharing a new life, how might we to support Residential Child Care Services transformation from a service design perspective to address the system bottleneck, give the children and youth a voice and support their recovery? We invited designers, social workers, psychologists, and wellness experts to share their insights at Season 14's symposium and co-creation workshops, with the goal of helping them heal from pain, improving their quality of life, and increasing their future-readiness when they leave SGHs.

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This action project goes beyond devising design considerations and spatial design concepts for Small Group Homes (SGHs). Through close engagement with children and youth from the SGHs, the house parents and social workers, the project seeks to reimagine SGHs and address the operation constraints by i) blending trauma-informed care design principles and WELL standard™ in developing the key design parameters for upgrading the SGHs and recommended soft programme that would help create child- and youth-friendly environments that defy institutional settings; ii) considering spatial design and operation strategies that would support frontline staff in caring for the children and youth; and iii) ways to bring out the children and youth’s voice in the home design to increase their sense of security and attachment to support their recovery. While the project is based on a specific SGHs location, the process considers the broader needs of Residential Childcare Services, with the intention of encompassing the practical needs of different institutions and settings.

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Throughout the course of the engagement with users in delivering the Action Project, "Reimagining the Small Group Homes for the Future", J.C.DISI has come to acknowledge that the Children and Youth (C&Y) residing in Small Group Homes (SGHs) often face challenges when expressing their emotional and spatial needs. This is particularly apparent for those who present traits of Special Educational Needs. Recognising this, the team initiated a two boardgames as a gamified communication tool to support social workers and other agents of the Residential Child Care Services to gain deeper insights into the emotional concerns and living habits of C&Y and give them a voice in shaping the environment they live in. Through the strength-based gamified communication tool, the C&Y will also be guided to understand their own strengths, interests and talents to make informed decision about their personal development and future pathways.

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How could we mobilise available social resources from across various sectors to effectively and sustainably improve the living environment of children and families residing in sub-divided units (SDUs)? In Season 9 of Operation SoInno, JCDISI dived deep into social, economical and physical issues commonly faced by SDU families, as well as sustainable solutions that could effectively address to their pain points. Through participatory co-design processes, we seek to leverage the resources available in the society and effectuate the planning and application of home modification strategies in SDUs with cross-disciplinary experts.

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Hong Kong is a compact and densely populated area, parks are of paramount importance to high-density cities like Hong Kong. The “Intergenerational Play Space Design Competition | HKHS Prosperous Garden” co-organised by HKHS and JCDISI provided a platform for professionals and university students from different disciplines to reimagine public space and playground for IG interactions. This report documents participating teams' design ideas, deliberations with local stakeholders, experts' vision and the judges' comments on the winning designs as a book of reference to inspire on how to take the IG play space design idea forward.

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Public open spaces in Hong Kong are generally zoned and demarcated by their functions and targeted users. While the equipment are monotonous and may not satisfy the needs of different age groups and discourages interactions. “Kowloon Park Fitness Trail Proof of Concept Study” took forward design considerations developed in Season 4 to test the applicability of such principles. With LCSD and ArchSD as Strategic Partners to provide technical advice, the cross-discipline knowledge creation and knowledge transfer exercise fleshed out practical considerations and provides a reference design for future development.

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When was the last time you played with somebody beyond your generation? What are your desires for an ideal play space? The benefits of play space to everyone’s physical and mental well-being has remained important, if not more important, than ever in light of COVID-19. The Season 4 Summary Report compiled the takeaways of Co-creation Workshop and Symposium, in which the co-created ideas were further explored in our action projects.

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The "Double Smart Assessment Indicators for Elderly-friendly Community" provides an easy-to-use assessment tool for the community to understand the needs of the elderly and areas where prioritised actions are required, thus introducing community- and user-oriented hardware and software solutions to support the elderly to age at home and in place.

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Many elderly people are still active and healthy in their post-retirement life. These retirees would like to continue to give play to their strengths and contribute to society. The “Report On Silver Age Startups in Hong Kong” catalogued the challenges, achievements, and gains of a group of senior citizens rewarded from the process of creating new social enterprises, and also demonstrated the unlimited possibilities of “Active Ageing”.

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With technological advancements, various social sectors strive to find innovative and smart solutions to tackle the challenges caused by double ageing and to make the community and user experience more elderly-friendly. With the theme of "Enabling Smart Ageing with Health and Building Data”, Season 10 promoted the building of a digital platform for systematic integration, analysis and visualisation of practical knowledge and data, so that the young old can better assess their ability in and prepare for ageing in place.

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Season 6 aims to explore further on the issue of efficient delivery of the transitional social housing (TSH). Targeted at NGOs who were involved or interested in implementing TSH projects, the project planning workshop and symposium pinpointed the common difficulties they had encountered and equipped them with basic technical competency on the subject. In light of the COVID-19 outbreak, both the workshop and symposium were conducted in online webinar format.

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How can a robot assist older elderly who are not familiar with technology in achieving “Active Ageing”? The “Report on Co-designing Interactive Voice Response Robor for Elderly Centre” not only documented the process which “Tung Zai” is born, but also demonstrated the way technology integrates into elderly’s everyday life. Witness together how elderly co-created “Tung Zai” by reading the report!

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GOActive.hk:Whatare the concerns when designing a digital platform for elderly to registeractivities organised by elderly centres? The report “GOActive.hk: ConnectingCity-Wide Users through an Elderly-Friendly Website” documented the wholeprocess of the Action Project, including the design principles and theirapplications discovered during a series of user engagement workshops. Find outmore details of the platform design by studying the report![No text in field]

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From planning to implementation, what challenges did the Silver Age DJs face when producing this online music sharing programme? How did they overcome the difficulties? The “Silver Age DJ Action Project Report” not only documented the whole process of the Action Project, but also summarises some suggestions and principles from the experience of the Silver Age DJ pilot programme on encouraging members of the elderly centre to initiate self-organising activities. Find out what elderly DJs were doing along the way by reading the report!

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In order to encourage our society to think about how to cope with the “double ageing” issue in our society, this project aims to pool together efforts from different parties to re-design and improve the existing iron trolley used by elderly waste pickers, to make it safer, easier to use and be more adaptable to the local urban landscape and usage practices. We asked the University’s Industrial Centre to produce 4 prototypes of the Recycling Trolley; and invited four elderly waste pickers from different districts to conduct field testing and summarized our experience in this report.

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"Co-Designing Iron Trolley for Cardboards Recycling" is one of the SoInno Action Project to promote "Elderly-friendly Employment" with the aims to improving the trolley used by elderly waste pickers. After a more than 6-month co-creation , the process and detailed design are ready for public reference. Don't miss out!

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Stemmed from Season 2’s theme of “Empathising with Elderly in Workplace”, a design scheme was developed for a community waste management centre for garbage collection, waste recycling, and pioneering provision of decent space and facilities to serve our cleaning worker. This is a feasible prototype for a new generation of government refuse collection points that can stand as an icon of functionality and community pride.

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As a SoInno Action Project for promoting "Elderly-friendly Employment", we examined "Chan Un Chan Third Age Volunteers Centre cum Community Kitchen” operated by the TWGHs and published "The Toolkit for the Age-friendly Community Kitchen", which illustrating universal design on 8 aspects namely "Layout & Furnishing", "Operation Routing & Logistics", "Labels & Signage", "Equipment", "Training", "Inspections & Records", "Menu & Recipe" and "Incentives" for age-friendly community kitchens.

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The interim report highlights the issues and challenges in identified in the season 1 co-creation process and at the Symposium and the seven conceptual design schemes developed by the co-creation teams.

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The Transitional Social Housing Action Project covered three sites with varying physical and socio-economic environment, i.e. a temporary work site at the intersection of Tung Chau Street and Yen Chow Street West in Sham Shui Po, the former SKH Stanley Village Primary School in Stanley, and the Ma Wan Old Village. The Report provides a comprehensive documentation of the cross-sector and trans-disciplinary co-creation process which has contributed to enriching the knowledge in the planning, designing and implementing transitional social housing projects in Hong Kong.

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Since 2015, Good Seed have supported over 80 social projects, all dedicated to bettering the lives of different people in Hong Kong through innovation. Focusing on projects launched in 2018-2020, this book tells the stories of 25 of these projects, charting not just their success, but also hardships and failures along the way. They show that initiating and sustaining an innovation project is no easy task, but by following a desire to do good for society, anyone could become a change maker.

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Recorded 31 stories of the young social innovators who are incubated by Good Seed in 2015 – 2017, it showcased the power of social innovation from different sectors for different groups of users, including care for the visually impaired and hearing impaired; the autistic, dyslexic and disabled; the elderly scavengers; and the parents and children.

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A book recording 31 successful and touching stories of the Good Seed projects. Good Seed programme has supported 45 social projects since 2015. Some of them generate unprecedented solutions, some of them successfully converge societal goals, some of them are in full swing, some of them has already hit the sack. In this book, 31 adventurers have been recorded with a humanistic perspective instead of merely numbers and assessments, for they are only humans with good hearts trying to do good for Hong Kong.

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