Hong Kong is a fast paced and constantly changing city which easily makes people feel stressed and anxious. To help those stressed and anxious people, Dr Pan Jiayan, Associate Professor of the Department of Social Work at HKBU, has launched the REST ONLINE program and the CANDO program. These 2 programs aim to help tertiary students with psychological distress and people with mild to moderate depressive symptoms via the online counselling platform, inject positive energy and help them improve their mental health. 

Dr Pan Jiayan 

REST ONLINE is a 2-year program funded by the University Grants Committee, to serve Hong Kong tertiary students with mental health needs. University is an important place for students to get prepared for the future. Many students feel pressure due to a variety of university stressors, resulting in mental health problems. CANDO(Confront and Navigate Depression Online) is a 3-year program funded by the Innovation and Technology Bureau to launch an online counselling platform in 2019 for Hong Kong people with depression.

Both programs provide 8 sessions of online cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) training in which participants can learn different cognitive behavioural skills through case demonstration. The programs also provide face-to-face and telephone counselling by clinical psychologist and social worker. Pre-tests, post-tests, and follow-up tests are used to evaluate the effectiveness of the programs. With comprehensive online and offline support, it is more efficacious to treat depression. 

                           The logo of REST ONLINE and CANDO online cognitive behavioural program

Local online counselling platform

CBT is a psychotherapeutic approach to changing negative emotions and behaviours by identifying and challenging negative or irrational beliefs. Participants can learn cognitive behavioural skills from the online platform. Through practice, they can deal with their emotional problems. The treatment via the online platform is not restricted by time or location. Participants can complete the treatment at their own pace and space. In addition, the case demonstrations used in the program were developed based on local cases. These lively local cases enable participants to resonate and engage in the treatment.

After the launch of the program, a flood of applications and enquiries was received. Dr Pan said “Many Hong Kong people are living under a high level of stress. The number of applications were more than what we expected. As we have limited resources, we could only select suitable participants through intake interviews."  The programs also cooperate with two non-government organizations, including Richmond Fellowship of Hong Kong and Caritas Wellness Link – Tsuen Wan, to refer cases in need to join. Hong Kong Mental Health Association provides therapist support online and offline to help participants in the REST Online program to relieve their psychological distress.
 

Dr Pan Jiayan showed the online counselling platform used in the REST ONLINE.

Interdisciplinary cooperation to tackle lack of resources

A few years ago, Dr Pan attended a CBT international conference with experts from all over the world to share counselling experiences. At the conference, a professor from Sweden shared the online CBT method. Dr Pan was inspired and believed this online therapy model could help Hong Kong clients. Later, introduced by this professor, Professor Per Carlbring from the Department of Psychology at Stockholm University became a team member of the research programs and provided professional advice. The CANDO team also includes Professor Xu Jian-Liang from HKBU Department of Computer Science, and Prof Petrus Ng and Dr Daniel Young from HKBU Department of Social Work.

Dr Pan pointed out that over 600,000 Hong Kong people suffer from depression. In 2020, the World Health Organization ranked depression as the second global disease. However, Hong Kong does not have enough manpower resources to help the clients. The long waiting time for public services and high charges at private services have discouraged many clients from receiving service. Therefore, Dr Pan determined to design free online counselling platforms to provide services to them. 

The CANDO team and its partners: (from left) Mr Kelvin Yuen, Social Work Supervisor, Caritas Wellness Link – Tsuen Wan; Mr Stephen Wong, Senior Social Work Supervisor, Caritas Wellness Link - Tsuen Wan; Dr Tim Fung, Director, Richmond Fellowship of Hong Kong; Dr Pan Jiayan, Associate Professor, HKBU Department of Social Work; Professor Petrus Ng Yat-nam, Head, HKBU Department of Social Work; Dr Fiona Yip, Clinical Psychologist, HKBU Department of Social Work; Professor Xu Jian-liang, Associate Head, HKBU Department of Computer Science; and Ms Chan Chor-kiu, Analyst Programmer, HKBU Department of Computer Science.

Train professionals and serve the society 

The CANDO program also aims to organize various workshops to train 200 local mental health practitioners on how to provide online CBT services. With the impacts of COVID-19, the burden of Hong Kong’s medical system has kept increasing. In the long run, training more professionals to deliver online counselling services can help relieve the manpower shortage in mental health services. With the one-stop online counselling platform, therapists can help more clients in a limited time. 

Dr Pan also believes online counselling is a trend in future. There are already many online counselling programs around the world, but it has just started in Hong Kong. Threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic, many face-to-face counselling services in Hong Kong have to be suspended. Online counselling can be used as a new way to help people in need, and they are also happy to try this method. It can also serve as an effective supplement for face-to-face counselling. Clients can participate in it regardless of time and place, so they can get timely support they need. 

Training workshop to cultivate professionals to serve the society

Look forward to the future

In the future, Dr Pan hopes the government can devote more resources to the development of online counselling in Hong Kong. Online counselling can provide timely services to mental health clients with mild to moderate symptoms, prevent them from becoming severe clients. In addition to REST ONLINE and CANDO, Dr Pan believes other mental health problems can also be treated in online mode. She and her team have launched another online counselling program called EASE ONLINE (Ease Anxiety in Social Event Online) in January 2021 to help people with social anxiety via an online counselling platform and virtual reality exposure therapy. 
 
The three programs contain social media pages to share stories and teach different cognitive behaviour skills. There are also some related song posts to convey positive energy. These programs have received numerous positive user feedback. Dr Pan believes these programs can benefit more people in need.  

Social media posts from the REST ONLINE, CANDO and EASE ONLINE program, share stories and teach different cognitive behavior skills.