Integrated Children and Youth Social Services

Integrated Children and early days complaisant ServicesIntegrated Children and Youth neighborly ServicesIntroductionThe cultivation of incorporate go in Hong Kong aims to reduce the fragmentation and duplication of serving, fill service gaps, make custody deployment and resources allocation become to a greater extent flexible, and concern union demand (Angie Hong Kong Government, 1991). fit to Social Welf be Department, integrated children and early days service centre (ICYSC) integrates children and young person centre-based team, school conviction well-disposed work team and outreach team to better process the multiple needs of children and jejuneness aged from 6 to 24 exploitation the total person approach. There are four main(prenominal) objectives as shown belowFacilitating the personal development of children and youth to develop their spirit skills, potential and problem-solving ability.Enhancing the social development of children and youth in set uping up positive social values and attitudes, enhancing interpersonal and family relationships as well as contributing to the well being of the community.Adopting a community-based planning strategy to insure to local youth needs and to arouse the communitys concerns on youth issues so that young people could grow up in a more than concerned and supportive environment.Providing guidance and support to children and youth in disadvantaged circumstances much(prenominal) as disadvantaged family environment, deprived living environment and unfavourable social environment etc. and to put them to more positive lifestyle.ICYSC mainly set ups four considerates of meaning programs, including social right and competence enhancement programmes, supportive services, socialization programmes, and guidance and direction services. Social responsibility and competence enhancement programmes piece of tail enhance civic mindfulness and involvement of children and youth in community issues. Support ive services for disadvantaged children and youth aim at facilitating mutual support and enhancing their personal as well as social functioning. Socialization programmes aim at part children and youth enhance the interpersonal and family relationships and development of life skills. Guidance and counseling services aim at providing opportunities for children and youth to deal with their difficulties and stress.Apart from the core programmes, ICYSC withal chargeed on how buns the centre attract more children and youth, how to enable them to utilize their leisure season constructively, how to build rapport with members and their families, and how to build up community links. Among the work of ICYSC, community needs should be accustomed the naughtyest priority and the centre should collaborate with other signifi kindlet persons or systems which require the welfare of the children and youth.There is no regulation or guidelines about what integrated mannequin should be adopted b y ICYSC. The integrated model rattling depends on the agency and the community served so that clients and residents are best benefited.Strengths and Limitations of ICYSCThe areas of strengths and weaknesses of ICYSC erect be interpreted in distinguishable kinds of integration as different agencies may apply different integration models or concepts.Service integrationFor service users, service integration allows earlier intervention, the service gap is narrow and the stigmatization of clients are lessened. However, this may weaken services for hosts with special needs, such as marginal youth. For workers, higher degree of coordination tooshie be develop with insights from colleagues but it takes much time to communicate and both workload and mechanical press are increased. For agency, there preserve be higher flexibility in deploying manpower and resources, preventing the overlapping of services. Nevertheless, it increases the time involve and the difficulty in centering a nd coordination. The graphic symbol of supervision may be lowered. There may also be insufficient space in peak periods, including after school hours and weekends. These may affect the quality of service to children and youth.Profession-oriented integrationunlike professionals fall in and work together. For example, policemen work with social workers in Police Superintendent finesse Scheme. Teachers cooperate with social workers to hold school events for students. With different professional skills and knowledge, the quality of service can be increased. Multi-level and multi-disciplinary interventions are also available. However, as all(prenominal) profession may generate its own values and preferences, it requires much time for discussion, collaboration and instruction execution of services. In case of conflicts among professionals, conflict-resolution is required. In this way, the quantity of time providing direct services to children and youth may become limited.Method-ori ented integratingDifferent intervention methods like casework, group work, community work, asset-based community development model can be merged together to form a multi-level intervention. This makes it more flexible to fulfill clients with different needs. This kind of integration trains workers skills and build up their knowledge so the services provide to children and youth can opposition the changing societal needs. Since workers have to step into and consider many intervention methods together, the workload and pressure of workers are highly increased. If they are burnt out, the efforts compensable in working will be decreased.Agency-oriented IntegrationDifferent agencies can collaborate together and increase their resource pool by sharing. Resources can be manpower, financial support professional service or unique(predicate) knowledge and skills. A typical example would be volunteer group where children and youth centre works with elderly centre or rehabilitation centre. These kinds of cooperation can best utilized resources from and strengths of different agencies, avoiding the overlapping of services. As this kind of integration requires the collaboration of different agencies and the efforts to match clients needs with resources, it is relatively time-consuming.Locality-oriented IntegrationSimilar to agency-oriented integration, locality-oriented integration makes use of the resource pool but it is peculiarly from community and aims at serving community needs. The sharing of resources strengthens the interflow and referral system with agencies in the same locality, reducing the administration process and enhancing the cohesion in the community. Social capital built and convenience are beneficial to service users. Again, it is almosttimes time-consuming as consensus and negotiation are non easy to achieve.Client-oriented IntegrationDifferent services under one roof can be served to different clients profiles or needs. The services are more per son-centered so as to promote holistic development of clients, serving multiple and developmental needs throughout their life-spans by single point of entry. To fully adopt this integration, high level of coordination among teams as well as case management are crucial. Outreach work has to be carried out in order to better experience clients needs. Hence, workers may have higher workload and pressure. There may also be conflicts between different types of clients.There are also several(prenominal) general limitations of ICYSC model. Models are not regularly and comprehensively evaluated. The government didnt provide clear operational guidelines to NGO on the way of implementation of integration. Owing to the governmental subvention (i.e. clod sum grant), service providers have to fulfill requirement of funding service agreement so they focus more on quantitative output than qualitative outcome. With fixed substance of subvention, agencies compete with each other to apply for res ources and funding. When services are direct by funding, it may not fit the community needs well. The lump sum grant also hinder long-term planning of services and sustainable service development as no one can guarantee there will be enough resources for the events in the flood tide years.Improvement on Implementation of ICYSCThere are some suggestions on how to improve the implementation of ICYSC model. And they are categorized into worker, agency and policy levels.1) doer LevelThe government may support mandatory training to social workers and other relevant professions to let them master and update their knowledge and skills to playact the changing integration environment. Workers may also make use of their loose time and working hours to better equipped themselves to comply with agencys integration model.2) Agency LevelThe agency can review community needs regularly and frequently. It can also develop a web-based electronic database for more effective case-management and sha re among multi-disciplinary teams confidentially so as to provide more integrated and real-time client-based information. The pool of resources should be strengthened by developing self-sustaining services and reducing the limitation from government funding.3) policy LevelThe government should introduce emergency funding to meet peeled or sudden community needs and provide financial certificate to facilitate long-term planning in NGO. FSA should be evaluated and restructured based on quality and fulfillment of community needs. ICYSC models should be regularly evaluated to see if amendment is needed with the invitation of suggestions from agencies and citizens. Although different districts may have different needs, there should be some common needs for children and youth in Hong Kong. It is good to synchronize services for these common needs among service providers in Hong Kong. Last but not least, tripartite collaboration among the public, the private sector and the government sho uld be intensify so resource pool will be magnified and self-sustainability can be promoted.ConclusionIt is hoped that by adopting the more appropriate integration model, sympathy the strengths and weaknesses of the adopted integrated model with continual evaluation and improvement, children and youth can satisfy their diverse needs in a holistic manner. Children and youth can enjoy one-stop and user-friendly services. Hence, the future generation can be nurtured well and contribute to society when time comes.(1497 words) ReferencesAngie, Y. The purpose and future development of social services integration.Hong Kong Government (1991). White paper on social welfare into the 1990s andbeyond. Retrieved 9 May, 2014, from http//ebook.lib.hku.hk/CADAL/B38633498.pdfSocial Welfare Department. Funding and service agreement (lump sum grant)integrated children and youth service centres (ICYSC). Retrieved 9 May, 2014, from http//www.swd.gov.hk/ doctor/fsa_sd/ICYSC.pdfSocial Welfare Department. Integrated children and youth service centres. Retrieved9 May, 2014, from http//www.swd.gov.hk/en/index/site_pubsvc/page_young/sub_centreserv/ id_integrated4/