Professor Cecilia CHAN, JP

B.Soc.Sc.; M.Soc.Sc.; Ph.D. (HK); R.S.W.; F.H.K.P.C.A.; F.A.O.S.W.; J.P.

Professor Emeritus, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, and Founding Director and Associate Director, Centre on Behavioral Health, The University of Hong Kong and Fellow, Hong Kong Professional Counselling Association, and Founding Fellow, Hong Kong Academy of Social Work, and Fellow, Association of Oncology Social Work.

Professor Chan is a world leader in health and social work. She is author of over 400 articles and book chapters in health and mental health in social work, eastern integrative empowerment intervention and outcome research, psychosocial oncology, death and bereavement care. She advocated for a strength-oriented empowerment approach in her work with traumatized individuals. She adopted vigorous bio-psycho-social outcome indicators in her randomized trials on measuring impact of her innovative Integrative Body-Mind-Spirit (IBMS) interventions on different population groups. Brief of her work of IBMS intervention and its impact can be found in the 3-minute video:  http://www.socsc.hku.hk/50/project/revolution-spirit-%E2%80%A7-mind-%E2%80%A7-body/. She leads the first multi-disciplinary team using salivary cortisol (stress), IL6 (inflammatory marker) and telomerase (anti-aging) as physiological impact on psychosocial and qigong exercises training by social workers. Her creative synergy of Chinese philosophies and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practices into holistic behavioral health intervention is ground-breaking. Her integrative meaning-making empowerment strategies effectively nurture spirituality of forgiveness, appreciation, gratitude, peace, hope, resilience and optimism, which are fundamental to building a harmonious society.