Training Program for Happy Family Kitchen Movement Project

In recent years, Hong Kong is undergoing rapid changes together with macro social and economic trends. Demographic shifts, both immigration across national borders and migration with nations, as well as the changing in societal norms and values have significant impact on the structures and relationships within families. Physical inactivity was found to be a local and worldwide issue and most Hong Kong people are having a sedentary lifestyle . Studies show that the increase of physical activity and healthy diet reduce the risk of chronic diseases, and improve cardio-pulmonary functions; whereas sedentary behaviors increase the risk. Positive psychology is used as a preventive and complementary medicine, which also is crucial component in family holistic health (happiness, harmony and health). Positive psychology aims to focus on positive emotions, and uses scientific understanding to implement effective intervention, which lead to positive attitudes, happiness and fulfillment. Positive psychology interventions can be effective in the enhancement of subjective and psychological well-being and may help to reduce depressive symptom levels.

The increasingly complex and diverse family structure is leading to a major concern in the well-being of families in Hong Kong, including their health, happiness and harmony (3Hs). Family life and health education should be strengthened to meet the increasing needs of healthy lifestyle among Hong Kong families. A framework of "Five principles of positive psychology" to enhance family communication was developed in Family Kitchen I project, which is the sub-project of FAMILY Project. The five principles concerned are happiness, flow, gratitude, savoring, and health. It used "eating" and "kitchen" as a platform to develop a positive environment for family well-being and communication, which based on five positive psychology approaches to improve communication in the family, and in turn promote FAMILY Health, Happiness and Harmony (3Hs).

Following the theme on FAMILY 3Hs, the new work focus is to promote family holistic health with emphasize on the interaction and integration of physical and psychosocial health. In light of these concerns, FAMILY projects - Happy Family Kitchen Movement (HKFM) project will be conducted at territory-wide level. HKFM project is to focus on "FAMILY Holistic Health" and aims at promoting higher level of physical activity and healthy diet for people of all ages. It also enhances family interaction, pleasure and well-being, as well as FAMILY 3Hs. HKFM is a community-based research project with 3 main components - training program, community-based family intervention and public education event.

Train-the-trainer workshop would be provided to the service workers and ambassadors in different districts to equip them with knowledge and skills in implementing the community-based family intervention programs.

In the current study, the investigators would use training workshops as a capacity building method and an essential media delivering the knowledge on holistic health.to the public. The holistic health information is related to positive psychology, physical activity and healthy diet.

The project team will provide training workshops for the participants, including: (i) train-the-trainer workshops for the social service workers, who will conduct community-based family intervention programs; and (ii) train-the-ambassador workshops for the ambassadors who will assist the social service workers to implement health-related activities for the public.

Need assessment and focus group interview will be conducted before program design and after conducting the training, respectively. Process evaluation will be performed to evaluate the process of each component of the program. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations will be conducted.