While personal growth is shaped by many factors, family upbringing is no doubt a key influence. Recognising the importance of parent education, HKMU launched a new community initiative, the HKMU Parenting Hub, earlier this year.
The initiative is driven by the Li Ka Shing School of Professional and Continuing Education (LiPACE), which has a long-established reputation in community education. The first phase comprised a dozen parenting courses, delivered through the celebrated Capacity Building Mileage Programme (CBMP), which have reached over 700 parents, grandparents and carers since their launch at the start of the year.
Apart from regular parents, the HKMU Parenting Hub pays special attention to the less-privileged grassroots families. It joins hands with the Society for Community Organization to offer CBMP courses for free to grassroots parents in Sham Shui Po. In August, two brand new series of lectures kicked off, one open to the public and the other especially for parents living in transitional housing. The latter series “Parent-child relationships and communication” started with six seminars in Pok Oi Kong Ha Wai Village, a transitional housing site. “Good parenting education will help grassroots children gain upward mobility,” says Ir Dr Conrad Wong Tin-cheung, Chairman of the HKMU Council, addressing the inaugural seminar at the village.
And the University's efforts do not end with education. A research team has been set up to follow up with the grassroots participants to find out whether the Parenting Hub programme has made a difference in terms of parent–child relationships, parenting skills and the children's whole-person development.
The “Dialogue with celebrities on parenting education” lecture series for the general public invites well-known experts to discuss various related topics. The lectures will be filmed and broadcast on TVB Pearl in the Knowledge for All programme.
Going forward, LiPACE will explore further channels and opportunities to continue its mission of parent education. A STEAM workshop with Finnish education features for kindergarten and primary school parents is already in the pipeline. This will enable parents and children to learn together through play, fostering quality companionship and communication.
