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To promote social inclusion and enhance public awareness and acceptance of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), “JC A-Connect: Jockey Club Autism Support Network” (JC A-Connect), which is initiated and funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, organised a series of public education activities, including the “JC A-Connect x Ocean Park Journey of Social Inclusion” (“Journey of Social Inclusion”), with the theme “Hello! New Friends” this summer to encourage mutual respect and diversity in the community.

Officiating at the launch ceremony for the “Journey of Social Inclusion” were the Club’s Executive Director, Charities and Community, Dr Gabriel Leung; Chairman of Ocean Park, Paulo Pong; and Consultant of JC A-Connect cum Associate Professor of the Department of Social Work & Social Administration of The University of Hong Kong, Dr Paul Wong.

Dr Leung expressed that as one of the world’s top ten charity donors, the Trust places great emphasis on the needs of children with ASD and their parents. Over the years, the Trust has provided funding of over HK$410 million to support the JC A-Connect project, hoping to encourage the community to pay attention to the building of an inclusive society and enable children with ASD to shine.  

Since 2015, the Trust has initiated and funded the eight-year JC A-Connect project. This pioneering project, the first of its kind in the city, offers holistic support to students with ASD attending mainstream schools, their parents and schools. JC A-Connect adopts a cross-sectoral collaborative approach, together with The University of Hong Kong and eight non-governmental organisations. The project aims to enhance the social cognition, communication, emotional management and learning abilities of students with ASD. It helps to build their confidence and ability to better integrate into school and daily life. The programme has achieved fruitful results, benefiting 60% of students with ASD and different educational needs in mainstream schools. Among them, over 90% showed significant improvement in their overall abilities. The programme also provides professional training for more than 18,000 teachers and related personnel. From the 2021/22 school year onwards, the Education Bureau has adopted and regularised the school-based support service model piloted by JC A-Connect to provide continuous support to autistic students, their parents and schools.

The public education activities of JC A-Connect are being held in July and August. The ambassador of JC A-Connect, “Bling Bling”, together with characters from the series of children’s books “Mr. Men Little Miss” will be at Ocean Park to promote understanding and diversity through a series of experiential learning activities. Parents can also learn skills from JC A-Connect’s evidence-based Caregiver Skills Training to enhance parent-child interaction. Every Sunday there are storytelling sessions from the educational psychologist team from The University of Hong Kong (Host Institution of JC A-Connect) to guide children on how to express their feelings and needs. JC A-Connect also launched a new storybook entitled “Hello! New Friends” at this year’s Hong Kong Book Fair. The storybook will be distributed to the public, kindergartens, primary schools and Parent Resource Centres for free to promote social inclusion. Through a collaboration between JC A-Connect and the Star Ferry, a thematic Star Ferry “Bling Bling’s Friend-ship” will sail across Victoria Harbour, raising awareness to care for people with ASD and to build a diverse and harmonious society together.

For the latest information about JC A-Connect project, please visit http://www.jca-connect.hk/.