MEMBERS OF THE SOCIAL WORK TEAM
Before I joined the University, I have been a school social worker, the in-charge of a children and youth centre and a family centre for a number of years. I joined the City University of Hong Kong as a lecturer in the Division of Social Studies in 1993, was transferred to the Department of Social & Behavioural Sciences (formerly Department of Applied Social Studies) as an Assistant Professor in 2008 and retitled as an Associate Professor (B) in 2012. I was promoted to Associate Professor (A) in 2017. My mission is to improve the mental health of children and adolescents from family ecological and positive psychological perspectives. My research mainly focuses on the family ecological and positive psychological factors that are related to anxiety, depression and suicide of children and adolescents. In the past years, I have published 50 papers related to children and adolescent mental health problems, parenting and positive psychology in international refereed journals with high impact factor, i.e., Child Abuse and Neglect, Prevention Science, Research on Social Work Practice, Journal of Advanced Nursing, Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, Journal of Happiness Studies, Nursing Research, Social Indicators Research, Suicide and Life-threatening Behavior, Child Indicators Research, Journal of Positive Psychology, Children and Youth Services Review, Journal of Child and Family Studies. I was also invited as a guest speaker and a keynote speaker in about 60 conferences and symposiums. I have established the Positive Education Laboratory in 2015, aiming to promote positive education for the students, teachers, parents and the community. The laboratory has collaborated with about 200 local schools to launch positive education.
Research Interests/Areas
- Youth related concerns and issues
- Social work development in China
- Life of young migrant workers in China
- Significance of fieldwork practice
- Qualitative research methods
Prof. Dennis S.W. WONG, Ph.D., is currently Professor of Criminology & Social Work at Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences. He served as an associate dean at the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences from 2012-2019 and the Acting University Librarian from 2019-2020. His areas of teaching and research are criminology, youth studies, parents-child relationships, conflict management, and restorative justice. Prof Wong is honorary consultant on youth drugs abuse, school bullying, and offenders’ rehabilitation for governmental organizations in Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore. He is one of the founding members of Asian Criminological Society, an active member of Asia Pacific Forum of Restorative Justice, and chairman / board member for a number of non-governmental organizations. Apart from publishing articles in local and international journals, he has published six books related to youth delinquency, school bullying, alternative to prosecution, mediation, and restorative justice. His areas of teaching and research are criminology, youth studies, parent-child relationships, conflict management, and restorative justice.
Prof. Siu Ming CHAN worked as a frontline social worker in community settings for eight years before embarking on his academic journey. He served the underprivileged, including homeless people, low-income families living in cubicles and subdivided flats, poor children, and the elderly, through direct service, group work, and community organizing. He also conducted policy research and surveys related to vulnerable groups facing poverty, housing problems, and other community issues.
FUNG Lai-chu Annis is an Associate Professor in a Social Work and Counselling Discipline. Her research and teaching areas are children and youth in school bullying, aggressive behaviour, peer victimisation, and innovative counselling interventions. She established the Children and Adolescents at Risk Education Laboratory (C.A.R.E. Lab.), which focuses on developing and scientifically evaluating various original interventions to reduce face-to-face aggression and bullying. Approaches such as the cognitive-behavioural approach, the physio-moral approach (e.g., Chinese martial arts and ethics), the neurobiological approach (e.g., Omega-3 supplementation), the social information-processing approach (e.g., storytelling), and the social learning approach (e.g., parenting efficacy) have been adopted to tackle these issues. Over 150 elementary and middle schools have been involved. In responding to social changes and needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, Annis established a new development of Cyber-Joy Enjoy Laboratory under C.A.R.E. Lab. in 2020. Cyberbullying has been a significant concern as students mostly rely on social networks to stay connected to friends and communities; hence, she developed evidence-based intervention based on emotion-focused therapy on cyberbullying and online victimization for young people.
Prof. Lu's research focuses on social determinants of healthy ageing, with a special emphasis on how environmental (e.g., neighbourhood physical and social environment) and social-behavioural factors (e.g., civic participation and volunteering) shape well-being, physical and mental health in later life…
Jerf Yeung joined the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences at City University of Hong Kong in 2013. He is a registered social worker and obtained his PhD in social work from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Before teaching in university, he has engaged in social work services and related research since he graduated in social work from City University of Hong Kong and worked in the fields of youth, children and family, and elderly services. His research interests include family and children, religion and health, and adolescent health.
Prof. Shen (Lamson) Lin received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW). With interdisciplinary training in social work (FIFSW), gerontology (Institute for Life Course & Aging), and population health (Dalla Lana School of Public Health), Lamson's scholarship centers around social determinants of health, minority ageing, health and mental health equity.
More recently, Lamson's research has been using statistical and computational techniques to examine the mechanisms, risk and protective factors, through which the COVID-19 pandemic influences individuals' psychosocial wellbeing (e.g., anxiety disorders, loneliness, stigma, and vaccine hesitancy). As a first-generation college graduate from his family, Lamson recognizes social/structural vulnerability (e.g., racialized identity, migration status, job precairty) in shaping resource distribution, power dynamics and consequantial health inequalities across the human life course.
To date, Lamson has published 19 SCI/SSCI-indexed scholarly articles and his representative papers can be found in top-tier peer-reviewed journals across health and social sciences, including Journal of Affective Disorders, Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences (Oxford University Press), Ageing & Society (Cambridge University Press), Journal of Social Work, Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. Prior to joining CityU, he was a course instructor teaching Social Work Practice in Health (MSW postgraduate course) at FIFSW since 2020.
Lamson has received multiple academic awards from professional organizations in North America, including the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) - 2018 Best Abstract Award (Gero-Ed Track), Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR)- 2019 Travel Grant, Society of Refugee Healthcare Providers (SRHP)- 2019 Best Original Research Award - and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) - 2020 Travel grant for CPHA Conference.
