Students randomly assigned to this group will receive 12 hours over 6 weeks (2-hour weekly sessions) teaching mindfulness meditation (e.g., loving-kindness, body scan) and compassion practices (e.g., self-compassion exercises). Content culturally adapted with Buddhist-influenced terminology and practices resonant with Hong Kong's context. Caregivers assigned to this group will receive students' help based on the mindfulness training.

Students randomly assigned to this group will receive 12 hours over 6 weeks (2-hour weekly sessions) teaching including: Occupational therapist training (e.g., daily living support), Physical therapist training (e.g., safe transfers), Speech Therapist training (e.g., communication aids), and Registered Nurse training (e.g., vital signs monitoring), tailored to caregivers' needs. Caregivers assigned to this group will receive students' help based on the caregiver skills training.

Students randomly assiged to this group will receive 12 hours over 6 weeks (2-hour weekly sessions) focusing on active listening, empathy, and basic conversational skills, without specific mindfulness or caregiving techniques. Caregivers assigned to this group will receive students' help based on the communication skills training.

Parallel randomized controlled trial

Preparedness for Caregiving Scale will be adopted to evaluate university student volunteers' self-perceived readiness to provide care across eight critical domains, including physical/emotional caregiving (e.g., "How well prepared are you to care for emotional needs?"), stress management, and emergency response. Each item is rated on a 5-point Likert scale (0=Not at all prepared to 4=Very well prepared), providing a quantitative measure of skill development through the intervention. Higher score indicate higher level of preparedness for caregiving skills. Total score ranged from 0 to 32.

This scale will be applied to caregivers of older adults who joined this study. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) is a widely used, self-administered screening instrument designed to facilitate the identification and assessment of common mental health disorders in clinical and research settings. Developed as part of the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD) project, the PHQ consists of several modules, each corresponding to specific psychiatric diagnoses according to DSM criteria. The most commonly used version, the PHQ-9, consists of nine items that assess the frequency of depressive symptoms over the past two weeks. Each item is scored on a four-point Likert scale (ranging from 0 = "not at all" to 3 = "nearly every day"), resulting in a total score ranging from 0 to 27. Higher scores indicate greater severity of depressive symptoms. The PHQ has demonstrated strong reliability and validity across diverse populations and is valued for its brevity, ease of use, an

This civic engagement scale will be adopted among volunteers to measure broader psychosocial outcomes through 14 items assessing attitudes (e.g., belief in community contribution) and behaviors (e.g., community participation frequency) on a 7-point scale (from 1 very disagee to 7 very agree). The score ranged from 14 to 98 with higher score indicate higher level of civic engagement. This scale demonstrated high reliability (α=0.80- 0.91) and validity in youth populations.