Read-to-Change

Started in 2015, Hans Andersen Club collaborated with Dr. Annis Fung, the Associate Professor of Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences in City University of Hong Kong launching the “Read to Change” project, which provides school-based storytelling social groups, with the use of Social Information Process (SIP) and Storytelling Intervention Therapy, which is the first in the world aiming to promote children’s pro-social behaviours, childhood aggression and conflict management.

The research revealed that Storytelling Intervention Therapy is effective in preventing children from becoming revengers or bullies. The children’s aggressive behaviour reduced by nearly half after participating in the project. Storytelling Intervention Therapy can also improve children’s emotion control, anger control and ability in dealing with social communication. The frequency of children triggered to anger dropped by 8% and the anger control index increased by 13% after the project, meaning that children were more willing and able to control their anger. Comparing with those who did not join any story group, Storytelling Intervention Therapy has shown a greater effect on anger control 11 times more.

 Serving schools from different districts, till March2019, the project had served a total of 19 schools, accumulative beneficiaries more than 900students. The project gained a lot of positive feedback. The research gives evidence that storytelling is able to enhance children’s communication skills, empathy, social relationship and etc. More than 70% parents of participants pointed out that their children became more willing to help others, proving the project is effective in improving social skills and build a harmony school.

Our team member published the result in an academic conference held in Berlin in 2019. We also shared our experience in the HKCSS conference with more than a hundred teachers and social workers in2017(The HKCSS Convention2017), video of the sharing can be viewed as follow: