Jockey Club Support Project

Jockey Club Support Project to Enhance Emotion Regulation Skills and Resilience of Cross-Boundary Families: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Guided by the process model of emotion regulation, integrative affect-regulation framework for resilience, and the reciprocal dynamics of emotion, affect, and resilience in the family system, researchers will develop a parallel intervention to incorporate two key members in Mainland-Hong Kong cross-boundary families: a parent and a child by improving their affect/emotion regulation skills, de-escalate family conflicts, and flourish under hardships. Specifically, researchers predict that participants in the intervention group will report greater improvement in resilience, emotion regulation, psychological well-being, family harmony, and social connectedness than those in the control group.

Researchers will conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) intervention study targeting cross-boundary families' affect/emotion regulation skills as well as personal and family resilience. Researchers will implement two arms with the allocation ratio of 2:1. As most cross-boundary children are preoccupied with after-school academies and extracurricular activities, participating parents will receive four group activity sessions, while children will receive two sessions. The intervention themes and skills are the same for parents and children but condensed for children.

Researchers will collaborate with the International Social Services Hong Kong Branch (Shenzhen) (hereinafter referred to as "ISS"), an NGO that has served cross-boundary families in Shenzhen for over 30 years.

Inclusion Criteria for Parents:

1. have at least one child between the fifth and twelfth grade;
2. can participate in the intervention with their child;
3. are Hong Kong residents or have a family member who is a Hong Kong resident;
4. live in Shenzhen.

Inclusion Criteria for Children:

1. are between the fifth and twelfth grade;
2. are Hong Kong residents or have a family member who is a Hong Kong resident;
3. live in Shenzhen.

Exclusion Criteria:

(a) those who have current diagnoses of severe physical or mental illnesses;