A pioneering initiative, one of the beneficiaries of this year's Operation Santa Claus (OSC), is hoping to improve access to mental health therapies, with practitioners providing free, short-term, and remote support to local citizens. Improving Access to Community Therapies (iACT) was designed and developed by Mind HK - a mental health charity set up in 2017 by Dr Lucy Lord to ensure no one faces a mental health problem alone in Hong Kong. Last year, a report by the Chinese University of Hong Kong showed that 1 in 4 students suffered from mental health problems, pointing to the importance of early intervention to prevent student mental health further deteriorating. Dr Candice Powell, CEO of Mind HK, says their goal is to receive funding in order to serve at least 300 students to receive one-on-one psychological support based on the iACT model. "We believe that therapies shouldn't just be in the hospital but actually can happen in the community, so that's why we are launching this programme in secondary schools," said Dr Powell. Project coordinator Coco says she herself also benefited from the iACT short-term emotional support service after graduating from university and feeling anxious about her future. "The well-being practitioner used iACT as the therapy to how we live with our negative emotion and help me to find my life value. We can use another way to live with some negative emotion. We don't always need to fight them or eliminate those negative emotion," Coco said. As part of its pilot phase from 2021 to 2024, Mind HK trained over 100 well-being practitioners to work with youth and adults. Jointly organised by RTHK and South China Morning Post, OSC funds charitable projects that focus on children and youth, the elderly, the community, those with physical and mental disabilities, medical projects, and those concerning the environment. If you wish to make a donation, please visit the Operation Santa Claus website at https://oschk.org/.
