HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach Newswire - 22 July 2024 - Co-organised by The D. H. Chen Foundation ("the Foundation") and Generation Hong Kong ("GenHK"), the co-initiators and growth partners, the Guardians of the Silver Age : Meaningful Ageing and Compassionate Care Summit (“the Summit”) concluded on a high note. Around 130 stakeholders from the healthcare, welfare, education and academic, business and public policy sectors gathered at the Summit for an inspirational and solution-oriented dialogue on reimagining ageing and transforming the eldercare industry in Hong Kong. Jointly initiated by the Foundation and GenHK, the Guardians of the Silver Age (“GSA”) was launched in 2020 with the goal to redefine eldercare and promote Elder-Centric Compassion across the industry. Not only does it provide training to frontline care workers and supervisors, in the past two years, it has also successfully pioneered a school pilot programme to nurture the same values and mindset among the young generation in secondary schools. At the Summit, GSA’s representatives, employers, school partners and programme participants shared the significant impact GSA has made since its launch. The Foundation and GenHK also unveiled GSA 2.0 which will further focus on catalysing change in service units and schools, with the goal to deepen the compassion value in the community and promote the vision of creating a society where “Everyone is a Guardian of the Silver Age and Everywhere has a Guardian of the Silver Age”. Navigating the ageing society with the Elder-Centric Compassionate approach In Hong Kong, the percentage of people aged 65 and older is increasing sharply from 20.5% in 2021 to the projected 36.0% in 2046, according to the Census and Statistics Department. Meanwhile, the talent gap in the eldercare industry has remained high at around 20%. While eldercare workers play a pivotal role in safeguarding the well-being of older adults, some have overlooked service quality and respect for the elderly due to the intense workload and lack of behavioural skills and mindset training. Therefore, the elderly are not getting the dignified care they deserve, and this is the pressing social problem GSA intends to solve. At the Summit, Professor Terry Lum of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, and Henry G. Leong Professor in Social Work and Social Administration, shared some important findings from his independent research commissioned by GenHK to evaluate the effectiveness of the GSA bootcamp in training frontline care workers. The study indicates that the training effectively bridges the skill gap and enables care workers to transform from a task-based mindset to value-based mindset. Most importantly, the study recommends that the Elder-Centric Compassionate model can only be effectively adopted if the entire service unit shares the same value and systematically changes the culture; hence, it’s crucial for GSA 2.0 to aim at going beyond training individuals. Ms Karen Cheung, Trustee & Chief Strategist of The D. H. Chen Foundation shared at the plenary her understanding of compassionate care by referring to the traditional Chinese Confucius virtue of self-cultivation (修身) as a basis for regulating family, state, and the world (齊家，治國，平天下). Ms Cheung emphasised that individuals should be guided from a young age to first take good care of themselves, before extending care to their senior family members and the broader community. For this, Ms Cheung also cited the motto of her grandfather, Dr Din Hwa Chen, who was the Founder of The D. H. Chen Foundation: “Care for others as well as you would care for yourself.” Ms Cheung acknowledged that it can be challenging to fully empathise with the elderly. “We have not personally experienced the ageing process so we can only rely on imagination (of ageing) before we can provide proper elderly care,” Ms Cheung remarked. However, she believed that by guiding individuals from a young age to understand that even small acts can have a significant influence on one’s thoughts and behaviours, it would become natural for everyone to be motivated to take care of the most in need – be they young or old, within the family or in the broader community. “I am very pleased to hear that the GSA alumni have been inspired to care more for their own senior family members while learning to provide care for the elderly at facilities.” She added. ” Driving systemic change in the eldercare sector and from schools Since its launch in 2020, GSA has made a significant impact in the society and has trained and upskilled more than 200 and 300 elder-centric compassion frontline care workers and practitioners respectively. Professor Lum’s research also indicated that both GSA graduates...