Parent Survey Feedback 2021

A very sincere thank you to all parents who completed our recent survey. Receiving feedback is crucial in order to help us to improve and to meet the needs of our families in the very best way we can.

Many congratulations to the lucky winners of the book vouchers!

Here are some of the issues that you raised along with our responses and/or actions:

In-house assessments

Our biannual assessment reports and individual goals are uploaded to the CDC Connects app. Several parents commented that they find accessing the report through the app a little challenging. To help you out, please note that when these reports are uploaded, you will receive an email to alert you that the report is ready to view. This email includes instructions of how to access the report. However, we will be looking into ways to make this easier and more intuitive with our app developers when we next need to make changes. We appreciate this feedback which helps us to improve CDC Connects. Remember, that if you prefer to have a printed copy of your child’s report then just let us know and we will provide one for you.

One parent commented that they would prefer a warning that the biannual assessments are going to take place. When your child is due for their biannual assessment, two questionnaires are sent via email: one for self-help and the other for social-emotional skills. We then assess your child during their group time that month on their other developmental skills. We do not give specific appointments for assessments as they are a spot-check of your child’s functioning and used by us to devise up-to-date goals. During the group closures due to the pandemic, we have been offering individual appointment times for assessments, at parents discretion. However, as in-person groups are resuming, we will revert to assessing within group time as we see this as the most efficient and fair way to assess and place the least stress on the child.

The CDC environment

Several parents commented that the entrance and lobby area are small and can become crowded at drop-off and collection times. We do indeed have limited space which we have tried to utilise as effectively as possible. Within these constraints we also strive to serve as many children as we can. Consequently, we have a no-waiting policy within the entrance. With Hong Kong’s property prices being amongst the highest in the world we have insufficient budget to rent a larger space. Another issue mentioned was the stairs being a potential safety hazard. We would remind parents to watch their children carefully whilst in the lobby area.

One parent commented that they felt the toilet and stairs areas were not clean enough. We would like to assure you that the toilets are cleaned and sterilised every two hours. In response to this comment, we have recently replaced the sealant around the sinks and toilets which has resulted in a fresher look in this area.

Parent Training

Our free in-house Parent Workshops received positive feedback. Thank you for your suggestions regarding topics for future sessions.  These are very useful to us. We noticed this year, that there were more suggestions for emotional and behaviour management which may reflect the stress of this past year for all; conflict resolution, dealing with challenging behaviours and negotiating with your child, were all mentioned. Other topics included helping picky eaters and supporting siblings of children with SEN. We will take into account your suggestions when planning our Parent Workshops. Due to social distancing measures, all of our Parent Workshops have been presented by Zoom since the start of the school year and we intend to maintain this mode of delivery for the near future.

Our Group Parenting programmes, e.g. Triple P Positive Parenting (English) and Happy Parenting (Chinese) have regretfully been suspended so far this year due to COVID-19. However, as the pandemic has eased, we are offering courses beginning in April.

Should you wish to pursue parenting support urgently, don’t forget our one-to-one Primary Care Parenting programme which can be provided in either English or Chinese.

Communication

Regarding communication about our teachers and therapists, feedback was generally very positive.

We would like to remind you that whenever you have a specific question or, indeed, would just like a general catch-up, our staff members are always very happy to give advice or answer questions via email or phone call at any time. In addition, parent meeting appointments are available every Thursday afternoon during term-time. These can be easily booked through the app, or we can help you to make the appointment if you prefer- just let us know. These meetings are for any topic that you want to discuss with us. Assessment results, progress, challenging behaviour and school applications are common topics at the parent meetings. Furthermore, although our preferred time is Thursday afternoon due to staff availability, we are extremely flexible and usually manage to accommodate requests for other times due to parent work or travel commitments.

We strive to work as closely with families as possible, as we believe that working together is the best way to ensure that your child reaches their potential. Remember that we always encourage parents to come into their child’s therapy session or group class (once they resume). For group sessions, please let your child’s teacher know if you want to join. Due to space issues, all parents together in the room would be overwhelming, so we need to control the number of visitors per session!

To conclude we would like to say a VERY BIG thank you for your many positive and supportive comments in describing the CDC and its staff. The top three words most used this year were caring, helpful, and professional! Our staff were happy to receive this positive feedback.

As always, do not hesitate to contact us at any time with questions, comments or concerns.

We hope that the rest of 2021 brings healthy and bright times for us all.