Step-Up Infinity Case Study

Key Strategies
There are a couples of strategies that mark the success of this project. The promotion ladder from participants to tutor helps participants to establish a concrete and progressive target that encourages them to perform well and devote more for their aspiration. Second, the close relationship, similar age or background between participants, social workers and tutors reduces the communication barriers and so facilitate the development of bonding and bridging capital. Third, strong solidarity among participants reduce the drop-out rate and enhance participants’ commitment. Fourth, the program actively involves participants’ networks, such as family members, principals and teachers. This fosters mutual understanding between parties
Participants in the project are most likely to be coming from similar background and facing similar issues, in which some of them might exposed to more risk-behaviours, such as drug-taking, casual sex and etc. As the social worker has pointed out, one of the participants has his connection in the project with some participants who have a triad background and could have learned deliquescing behaviours from them. She hence needs to pay extra time and effort to have talks with the participant, so as to prevent negative impacts took effect on him. However, this is largely up to the social workers’ discretion, it is uncertain that each of such exposures is counteracted by a proper and in-time
As observed, this project shows limited effort in building social capital to be utilized at a macro-level. While social capital builds social bonds that held individuals to institutions and players, scholars started to criticize that such remediating measures might instead over-construct conformity to authorities and social norms. Such conformity abets the construction of a unitary stereotypes of success, this strikes and problematize people who are deviant from such stereotyped image, harming individuals’ self-concept and undermining their potentials (Kelly, 2006; Groves, Siu & Ho, 2014). On the other hand, such call for conformity could also be a barrier (or an instrument to impose barriers) in advancing the civil society by asking for “disengagement” in politics and social events (Farthing, 2010; Garland Reed, 1995). This project therefore failed to promote participants’ social capital for the use of civic engagement in a macro