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Abstract
The outreach social work service is one of the dominant youth work approaches in dealing with delinquents and youths ‘at‐risk’ in Hong Kong. Yet this approach presents particular challenges. Outreach social workers usually play an active role in initiating and establishing contacts with young people, yet young people are reluctant to engage with the outreach social workers and are resistant towards therapeutic change. To date, little is known about what strategies and techniques are most effective in dealing with client resistance in this context. The aims of this paper are to gain a better understanding of the common resistant behaviours that outreach social workers usually encounter in their day‐to‐day practice, and to investigate how the outreach social workers respond to their clients' resistance with reference to case examples given in the in‐depth interviews. The findings of this study provide evidence that whilst client resistance is common in the outreach social work setting, social workers' patience as well as sensitivity are essential in resolving resistance and building up a rapport with clients.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Committee on Research and Conference Grants and the Social Sciences Faculty Reserve Fund at the University of Hong Kong for providing them with financial support. They also owe special debt of gratitude to the six outreach social workers who agreed to participate in this study and shared their front‐line practice experience with them. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on an earlier draft of this paper.