Hope-Oriented Parents Education (H.O.P.E.) for families in Hong Kong

Abstract

Children's resilience in facing adversities is perhaps one of the vital strengths that need to be fostered before they enter the stage of adolescence, a period with increasing exposure to the outside world. We have developed a four-session Hope Oriented Parents Education (H.O.P.E.) program for families in Hong Kong. 94 parents and one of their children aged between 8 to10 years old were randomly assigned to either an intervention or waitlist control group. Parents in the intervention group received the H.O.P.E. training program for four weeks. They were then asked to do hope story telling intervention with their children for another four weeks. Both parents and their children received pre- and post-training assessments on hope, happiness, and harmony. Our results showed that parents had an increase in hope level before and after the H.O.P.E. program and this increase in hope level was maintained after 4 weeks. Children in the intervention group, but not children in the waitlist control group, tended to show an increase in both happiness and harmony levels after hope story telling by their parents. In the presentation, we shall describe our training program.