Hong Kong family centre offers helping hand to ethnic minority children with special needs
- Zubin’s Family Centre provides support to children from ethnic minority groups with special educational needs who come from low-income households
- Centre launched in January by The Zubin Foundation with funds received by Operation Santa Claus from Morgan Stanley
Hong Kong-Nepali resident Laxmi Kunwar hopes her 10-year-old daughter can one day fulfil her dream of becoming a rapper, despite facing an uphill journey after it emerged the youngster could have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
But help is at hand, with Zubin’s Family Centre providing therapy for her daughter and working to improve her attention skills, ability to follow instructions and develop her self-help techniques.
Kunwar said she was grateful for the support from the centre, which opened in January and offers counselling, therapy and workshops for children from ethnic minority groups with special educational needs (SEN) who come from low-income households and their families.
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“Their work is definitely important. There are a lot of children with special education needs in the ethnic minority community,” she said.
“It’s difficult for parents to understand what to do or not. We need many more such centres to open and work with ethnic minority children who have autism or ADHD.”
Referred to the centre several months ago by a school social worker, Kunwar said she was impressed by the support offered there.
“The social worker told me the centre could provide appropriate services. I had not heard of any other places providing free therapy for ethnic minority children with SEN,” she said.
“I was very happy to learn that there are services I can access in Hindi or Nepali.”
The centre, at Austin MTR station, was established by The Zubin Foundation with funding received by Operation Santa Claus (OSC) from financial services giant Morgan Stanley.
OSC, an annual fundraising drive by the Post and public broadcaster RTHK, which recently marked its 35th anniversary, has raised HK$353 million (US$44 million) to support 323 local charitable projects since it launched in 1988.
Zubin’s Family Centre was among the 15 projects that were given funding from last year’s event.
“The SEN centre provides support to ethnic minority families with children with SEN,” said Ravina Lalvani, a clinical psychologist and project manager at the foundation.
“It provides 10 free therapy sessions to each of those children in a holistic and collaborative manner. It also offers services for their parents and families, with one of the objectives being to enable the parents to better work with their children and their schools,” she added.
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“Engagement with the community has taught us that there are many ethnic minority families who lack the support, resources and education about SEN. No parent should feel lost or hopeless when it comes to their children.
“The SEN centre is the greatest opportunity to work closely with parents, children and expert therapists in the community in the language of their choice – Hindi, Urdu, Nepali or English.”
Ravina Lalvani said the centre’s biggest challenge has been encouraging parents to focus on their children’s strengths.
“The list of complaints tends to be longer than that of strengths. So we are trying to help the parents shift perspectives and implement new parenting strategies,” she said.
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Ravina Lalvani added that OSC had helped the centre by giving it a chance to support children with SEN from ethnic minority groups.
“We are grateful to OSC for helping us help children and families in need who lack resources and support. We hope to help as many families as possible in the community,” she said.
