Best Practices in Advancing Family Well-Being in Asia: A Multimethod Qualitative Study

Family has been recognized as the basic unit of society. Strengthening family functioning and enhancing family well-being through promoting family-oriented policies that based on evidence that demonstrates the effectiveness and practicalities of interventions are important. However, the planning and evaluation of existing programs is not universally agreed upon due to a lack of guiding evaluation framework and different cultural contexts. This study aims to identify best practices and consolidate social impacts of programs that support family well-being in the Asian Region, data was drawn on the Wofoo Asian Award for Advancing Family Well-Being Project (3A Project), initiated by the Consortium of Institutes on Family in the Asian Region (CIFA). A multimethod qualitative study was conducted, including a review of documents on the 3A Project, documents submitted by a total of forty awarded projects


Introduction
Family constitutes the basic unit of society that warrants special attention in enhancing family well-being (United Nations, 1994).In 2019, there were 2.8 billion families worldwide, among which 59.4% live in Asia (United Nations, 2020).In a fast-changing society, families encounter challenges that are traditional in nature such as poverty, parenting, divorce, etc. (Quah, 2003).Families also face new challenges that are associated with demographic changes in the new digital era such as taking care of aged family members, mental ill-health, children with learning difficulties, families experiencing migration, etc. (Gusmano & Okma, 2018;Mascheroni et al., 2018;Quah, 2003).This calls for enhancement of family well-being interventions with evidence and options.
Families are continuously shaped and re-shaped by context and culturally specific history and current socio-cultural factors.Asia, a region that hosts the largest portion of population worldwide, has been the focus of the Consortium of Institutes on Family in the Asian Region (CIFA) and set the context of the present study.Regardless of the geographic context in Asia, modern social service development in Asia communities showed an age-segregation service mode with relatively limited resources (Banerjee et al., 2020;Kim & Lee, 2021).In other words, age-specific services are delineated from family services and executed independently.The most significant developments refer to children and youth service, services for people with disability, and elderly service (Table 1).This segregation service mode is a double-edged sword.On the bright side, such age-specialized services allow interventions to become targeted and interventionist become specialized.On the downside, this service mode poses boundary across settings and creates barriers for mutual learning between service providers.China, 2004;Republic of China, 2021;Social Welfare Department, 2021).This table provides examples of services under an age-segregation service mode, it does not aim to cover all the social services provides in each community.
A lack of accumulated wisdom generated from evidence-based practice became one of the barriers in stimulating interest, developing intervention tools, and sharing of knowledge and practice wisdom.With a growing number of new and complex family issues and a global trend of supporting families and concerted effort in other regions (Africa, 1992;Child & Family Evidence Based Practice Consortium, 2004;Family Success Consortium, 1990;Europe, 1958), an empowering organization oriented to family well-being was missing in Asia until the inauguration of CIFA in 2008 in Hong Kong.CIFA is an independent, non-profit organization registered in Hong Kong that aims to serve as a regional hub for networking among representatives from across Asia with the vision of "Converging Professional Wisdom for Family Well-Being."It has gained increasing recognition and support among Asian countries as well as the United Nations (UN).
In Hong Kong, CIFA's members were actively involved in policy research to advocate for interventions and programs to enhance family well-being.For example, they joined hands with academic units in studying the phenomenon of divorce in Hong Kong.Findings showed that the divorced population and children being affected experienced economic hardship (Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, 2014), results served as a ringing bell to direct the community in designing and executing interventions to cater for the unmet needs of this growing divorced population.
In the Republic of China (ROC; also known as Taiwan), the difficulties and struggles in work-family reconciliation were a long-standing issue and continue to impact families in this era.Childcare trends in ROC have been found to affect their families and contribute to challenges in work-family reconciliation (Tsai, 2014).
In China, the one-child policy -one of the largest population control strategies -was praised yet evaluated in the recent decade (Settles et al., 2013).This policy also received criticisms due to its negative consequences, such as forced sterilizations and abortions, as well as the abandonment of baby girls.Consequently, Chinese orphanages raised concerns internationally and increased societal burden (Settles et al., 2013).CIFA extended its influence in China and promoted its mission to enhance family well-being, different stakeholders were brought together to provide solutions in dealing with the orphanage issues.
In Asian countries, intergenerational issues have been the main concern in recent years (Croll, 2006;Lin & Yi, 2013).They experienced structure and demographic changes due to population aging; many older adults were left in the rural areas due to urbanization and an increase in the proportion of nuclear families.Additionally, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on families and society has been immense (Prime et al., 2020).Many families were overwhelmed with and challenged by the unprecedented financial problems due to unemployment, and stress and mental health issues caused by social distancing and work from home policies.CIFA was persistent in promoting family well-being in this difficult time and utilized its established network to provide solutions and advice to community partners, scholars, and policymakers.In this regard, CIFA took the lead in gathering practice wisdom and provided a collaborative platform for community partners to brainstorm and develop interventions to remedy this situation and help families to cope with the struggles they faced in work-family reconciliation.
The Asian Award for Advancing Family Well-Being Project (3A Project) was launched in 2010 and since then occurring every other year.It has been recognized as one of CIFA's most significant, valuable, sustainable activities, especially in the spirit of "Aspiration for Sustainability, Innovation, and Applicability" (ASIA).To acknowledge the staunch support and sponsorship from Wofoo Social Enterprises (WSE), it was renamed the "Wofoo 3A Project" in 2014.The Project actualizes CIFA's mission and vision by creating a platform for transdisciplinary collaboration and exchange while recognizing outstanding, innovative projects.Against that background and with the ten-year establishment of the 3A Project, it is a right time to gather the good practices implemented by like-minded organizations in Asia with the competition platform of the Wofoo Asian Award for Advancing Family Well-Being.
In the past decade, the 3A Project act as a competition platform to award programs that excelled in the following areas: (i)  , 2020).
The present study aimed to identify the best practices of 3A Project awardees and to consolidate social impacts of the 3A Project, which potentially serve as a reference standard to future family-oriented programs development.In this article, we reported the findings of best practices because we consider a separate article that details the social impacts of the 3A Project is beneficial.

Design
This was a multimethod qualitative study with an embedded design (Fig. 1) (Collier & Elman, 2008).This study comprised a document review of two sources: documents on 3A Project and a total of 40 written documents of all eight finalists of the five 3A Project years in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018, competing for Gold Award, Silver Award, Bronze Award, and five Outstanding Awards, all of which were shortlisted to enter the final-round adjudications.Four team leaders of 3A Project awardees were invited for in-depth interviews, with considerations on predefined parameters, to complement the findings from document review.Kellogg Foundation, 2004).These three elements corresponded to three phases of a program: planning, implementation, and evaluation.We used the logic model as a conceptual framework and referenced it on the 3A Project Judging Manual (CIFA, 2017) to develop an initial analytic framework (Fig. 2).We conducted a pilot study on a randomly selected document among the written documents of the 40 awardees and finalized an analytic framework that shapes our data extraction, data analysis, and data interpretation of the study.We termed this framework as the PIE-ISI model, which encompasses six overarching themes: (i) Project rationales; (ii) Implementation; (iii) Evaluation; (iv) Innovation; (v) Sustainability and replicability; and (vi) Institutional synergy.

Document Review
We followed three critical steps in conducting the document review: document selection, document review framework development, and document review and analysis (Bowen, 2009).

Document Selection
The CIFA secretariat provided both printed and electronic documents on the 3A Project, including documents on 3A Project itself and selected submissions from participating teams.Following joint discussion, the research team reached a consensus on reviewing (i) documents on the 3A Project and (ii) the written documents of all eight finalists of the five 3A Project years in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018, competing for Gold Award, Silver Award, Bronze Award, and five Outstanding Awards, all of which were shortlisted to enter the final-round adjudications.The implications of this decision were two-fold.First, data quality was ensured as all the selected documents were submitted according to and in compliance with stringent and standardized guidelines of the 3A Project, they were checked and reviewed thoroughly by an adjudication panel.Second, best practices could be extracted from these awardees following a "best-of-the-best" principle.The project features of the 40 3A Project awardees including the year of entry, level of award, project title, and region, are shown in Appendix A.

Document Review Framework Development
As described above, we developed the analytic framework based on the logic model of program development and evaluation (Taylor-Powell & Henert, 2008), an initial review framework was developed in January 2019.
After finalizing the PIE-ISI model, we further developed subthemes under each overarching theme (Table 2).We developed two subthemes under each main theme.Under Project rationales, we identified service gaps mapping and service users targeting.Under Implementation, we identified team formation and capacity building, and resource allocation.Under Evaluation, we identified output and outcome indicators, and feedback mechanisms.
Under Innovation, we identified project design upheaval and transformative service models.Under Sustainability and replicability, we identified revolutionizing knowledge and expanding budgetary.Finally, under Institutional synergy, we identified stakeholders' engagement and practice-based evidence.

Document Review and Analysis
Following the logic model depicted in Fig. 2, an Excel template was developed by the research team to extract data according to the PIE-ISI model.Data review and extraction were completed using a four-round approach.First, we reviewed the documents on 3A Project to familiarize ourselves with the origin, rationale, and development of the 3A Project.Second, we reviewed and extracted data of the gold, silver, and bronze awardees in 2014, 2016, and 2018.Third, we went through the same procedure on documents related to the gold, silver, and bronze awardees in 2010 and 2012.Finally, we reviewed and extracted data of the outstanding awardees in all five years.All the documents of the 40 awardees were thoroughly reviewed and analyzed by a trained researcher applying the PIE-ISI model to ensure consistency.

In-depth Interviews
On top of the document review, the research team conducted four in-depth interviews to explore the best practices and multilevel impacts of the 3A Project awardees (Boyce & Neale, 2006).Interviews findings were used to complement the results of document review, as well as to leverage the limitations of document review, such as insufficient details due to restrictions of word limits of the submission documents.

Semi-structured Interview Guide
An interview guide was developed based on two key references: time and the COMPASS impact model.First, the dimension of time considered the examination of each project's impacts at the time of entry and after attaining the award.Second, we took reference to the COMPASS impact model to evaluate six dimensions of project impacts, namely value to society, efficacy, magnitude, scalability, mission alignment, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) (Center for Social Innovation, 2016).Six guiding questions were: (1) What is the project's goals and objectives?; (2) What are the impacts of the project on individuals, families, community, and other social aspects?; (3) What are the impacts on funding opportunities, team's morale, and knowledge transfer upon the award of the project?; (4) What are the roles of 3A Project in impacting future project development in your organization?; (5) What are the impacts of the award application procedures on your team?; and (6) Are there any project results and award disseminations of your project?

Participants
Following a joint discussion, the research team considered three parameters in selecting participants for an in-depth interview to maximize generalizability: level of award, participating countries, and year of entry.A total of four team leaders of 3A project awardees were purposefully selected for interviews, they were holding managerial positions at the time of interviews.Two of the interviewees were male, with one obtained a doctoral degree.The interviewees were either the key project supervisor or operator that enable them to report details in the in-depth interviews.All the interviews were conducted by a trained research assistant and a CIFA Council member either face-to-face (local) or using a web-based communication platform (non-local).Interviews followed a semi-structured manner to allow participants to share their experiences, views, and opinions on developing, implementing, and evaluating the programs.Each interview lasted for around 30 to 45 minutes and was audio-/video-recorded.

Data Analysis
All the interviews were transcribed verbatim.We applied thematic analysis for in-depth interviews.As we already predetermined an analytic framework, interview data were coded and analyzed following the PIE-ISI model and concerning the six-step approach suggested by (Braun & Clarke, 2006): familiarize with the data, assign initial codes, search for patterns or themes, review themes, define and name themes, and write up.
In-depth interviews generated detailed information than what could have been available from document review, the findings were thus used to complement the results generated from document review.

Features of 3A Project Awardees
Of the 40 3A Project awardees, 60% were originated in Hong Kong (n = 24).Other awardees were projects stemmed from ROC (n = 5), Singapore (n = 4), China (n = 4), Malaysia (n = 2), and South Korea (n = 1).Among awardees with Gold, Silver, or Bronze Award, 73.3% (n = 11) were projects implemented in Hong Kong, 13.3% (n = 2) were conducted in Singapore, and the remaining 13.3% (n = 2) were executed in ROC.Project objectives and service users of these 40 3A Project awardees were diversified to address different family-related social issues in the communities.Details of these awardees will be described below following the PIE-ISI model.

Project Rationales
All the 40 3A Project awardees exhibited a capacity to identify social needs and develop intervention projects and/or service models that filled social gaps, and many also aimed to empower as well as advocate for service users.Above and beyond that, the awardees recognized a common goal to support families to equip with skills and knowledge to look after themselves.We identified similar project rationales across the awardees, including service gaps mapping and service users targeting.

Service Gaps Mapping
Our findings indicated that some awardees noticed the insufficiency of existing services provided by the government and neglect of trivial and long-standing social issues.In response, those awardees developed projects to cater to the needs of family well-being enhancement and prevent social problems from worsening.For instance, there were projects designated to address the psychosocial needs of children of divorced families in ROC [Project #8].Another project investigated how long working hours and working overtime affected Hong Kong employees' family time and core family-related values [Project #13].Over a decade of the awards, a few awardees even targeted mental health problems in the community [Projects #1,16 & 20].Clear objectives and target users considering specific natures and capacities were observed.Awardees of the Gold Award [Projects #1,9,17,15 & 33] all unambiguously stated at least three project objectives in their submissions, thereby showing that they had envisaged their goals in manageable ways and could formulate detailed, organized plans for their interventions or services.

Service Users Targeting
All awardees also defined their target users and set a maximum capacity of service quotas, both of which are essential to keeping society informed and avoiding redundant efforts.Referral agencies and institutions received clear messages about the criteria for participants, which ensured smooth referral pathways and prevented false hopes among the non-eligible needy.For instance, one project specifically served residents of Tin Shui Wai in Hong Kong: "we targeted to recruit 25 Tin Shui Wai residents" to "receive intensive drama training" [Project #5].Another project concerning food culture among families in South Korea ran a "local-based project in Cheonju-city" [Project #6].Having a defined scope is paramount to achieving the goals of any project.Most often, awardees envisioned a multilayered structure for their projects, including individual level, family level, community level, and societal level.Some projects provided psychological and/or psychiatric consultation services to individuals [Projects #1 & 3] or individualized services [Projects #9 & 27], while others were tailored to meeting family-based needs and devised various activities, interventions, and workshops, such as courses addressing family health and family functioning [Projects #1,11,13,26,36 & 40].

Implementation
Successful implementation of projects required concerted efforts from target users, service providers, service team members, volunteers, and academia.Given this, team formation and capacity building, as well as resource allocation were of utmost importance.

Resource Allocation
In general, awardees attached importance to resource allocation from three perspectives.First, in economics, resource allocation is the assignment of available resources to various uses [Projects #15,30 & 31].One project, for example, involved providing incentives to encourage target users to develop saving habits [Project #31].Second, in project management, resource allocation is the scheduling of activities and the resources that they require while considering both resource availability and the project's timeframe [Projects #8,16,17 & 38].Third, in strategic planning, resource allocation involves planning to use available resources to achieve project goals [Projects #8 & 30].

Evaluation
After the implementation of projects, evaluation provided a summary of achievement to not only the service teams but funders, gaps between planning and execution, and directions of future project formation.Awardees provided pledged output and outcome indicators, as well as a variety of feedback mechanisms.

Output and Outcome Indicators
Awardees provided detailed outcome measures, users' levels of satisfaction, and project evaluations.All awardees detailed the number of users recruited such as "628 members were recruited with 182 programs being conducted" [Project #19].Apart from the evaluation of outcomes and processes, some awardees also assessed cost-effectiveness in terms of the ability to attract new funding opportunities for considering sustainability.One project won a long-term monetary award and sustained a reputable image that helped to keep the corporate associate turnover rate as low as 5% in 2011 [Project #13].Another project calculated the unit cost per number of direct services to be only HKD 114 [Project #33], while another provided a calculation for the social return on investment, in which every 1 New ROC Dollar (NTD) invested in the community-generated 4.26 NTD of social value [Project #36].A noticeably increasing trend for social service providers is estimating and evaluating the cost-effectiveness of their projects for (i) auditing purposes, (ii) pitching the second phase or continuation of the project, and (iii) facilitating presentations to stakeholders (e.g., funders, organizational leaders, and the public).

Feedback Mechanisms
Awardees tended to adopt mixed method designs to obtain feedback from stakeholders, including target users, their family members, service team members, and the public.A few awardees of the Gold, Silver, or Bronze Awards had provided concrete pre-and post-evaluation with pilot tests [Projects #1, 2 & 11], while some even collaborated with academic groups to conduct randomized controlled trials as a means of rigorous project evaluation [Projects #1,11,23,25 & 32].A collaborative effort between the social service sector and academia captured an inclination and intention to follow evidence-based practices while critically evaluating projects in terms of efficiency, efficacy, and effectiveness.

Innovation
Apart from the project features listed above, the 3A Project has encouraged the birth of innovative projects in two domains: project design upheaval and transformative service models.

Project Design Upheaval
Interesting ideas and project designs were discovered, including the "recruitment of volunteers as mentors to share with teen mothers on baby caring experience" [Project #3], the "identification of youth-at-risk on the Internet, with the combination of mainstream services" [Project #17], the "enhancement of multicultural awareness" [Project #18], and the "development of the first comprehensive services for men in Hong Kong" [Project #19].Awardees conducted thorough background research to understand the realities faced by target users.Those awardees provided customized modes of participation to protect users' privacy and to address their physical and emotional concerns.Some awardees developed new modes to encourage participation, including a point system [Project #2], a reach-out method to offer services [Project #3], multiple tools for recruitment [Project #16], and matching gender of volunteers and target users to encourage participation [Project #19].The use of innovative, sometimes avant-garde tools and materials were also observed.Tools ranging from traditional paper-based forms to virtual ones were used.One project "combined a local version of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy and an online program with video clips" [Project #1], while another "provided a logbook to families to facilitate the tracking of progress," [Project #2].

Transformative Service Models
Regarding the structure of the projects, most awardees had articulated a clear, detailed program structure, often with semi-structured and/or multilevel service models.A semi-structured program provides a safe and trustworthy environment for the interaction of service providers and users, while multilevel service models usually start with the individual level and extend to the family and community levels by engaging family members as well as volunteers, ultimately to approach the societal to generate broader impact.Financing and funding were key for any project to succeed and have an impact.Both traditional modes of funding from sponsors as well as a hybrid model of financing that combined funders' contributions as well as community support were noted.For instance, some awardees received funding from charitable trusts and the commercial sector at the same time, namely "the Community Chest and The Bank of China Fund" [Project #1]; meanwhile, others had obtained support from the community for project development, such as "a wedding photography company supported ... photo-taking sessions for teenage couples" [Project #3].

Sustainability and Replicability
Awardees aimed to achieve long-term, lasting change in the field of family well-being and demonstrated clearly defined strategies for remaining sustainable and replicable seemed to have been more appealing.Evaluating the sustainability of projects often also has considered whether the project had a long-term future and could sustain itself once its funding ends.Despite the value of innovative ideas and initiatives to serve the wider community, of equal importance is replicability or the degree to which a concept or project proven to work in one community or region can be applied and/or translated in other communities or regions, whether in the same country or abroad.

Revolutionizing Knowledge
With the increasing ease of using technology, some awardees utilized online platforms or websites to create virtual knowledge hubs to allow other professionals, potential users, and the public to gain access to project details.This was strategic in enhancing the sustainability of the projects.Examples include "an official website for divorce mediation ... established with the support of the Child Welfare Bureau" [Project #8], and "an online resources data bank" [Project #14].Awardees acknowledged the essence of the replicability of their projects and prepared databases, materials, and manuals to accompany them.Awardees also disseminated their projects through various channels, including websites [Projects #1,8,11,22,26,29,31 & 32], social media [Projects #14,26 & 31], and conferences [Projects #1,3,6,8,12,16,32,35 & 40].Project dissemination was crucial to allow the exchange of knowledge and to raise public awareness about social issues, as in line with the mission and vision of CIFA for awardees to contribute to the body of knowledge about relationships in the local and international arena.

Expanding Budgetary
To continue providing social services that could fill existing gaps and to scale up their pilot projects, some awardees were actively seeking funding opportunities.In one, "a donation was obtained to continue providing positive psychology family service for one more year ... to serve about 2,400 families" [Project #10]; in another, "to sustain the program," the team "fostered a mentor system and transformed it into self-funding mode" [Project #12].In still another, "an annual amount of 7% of the gross profit of the company has been allocated for the operational expenses incurred" [Project #13].Some teams had "applied another private funding to continue the co-parenting works" and had funding granted for another three years [Project #22] or had "collaborated with the university to implement a new scheme sponsored by Beat Drugs Fund" [Project #27].

Institutional Synergy
Institutional synergy occurred when two or more organizations interact or cooperate to produce a combined effect that is greater than the sum of its separate efforts.In general, the key to successful institutional synergy was effective communication.Hybrid methodologies could also help to create synergy, by mobilizing two approaches to develop and implement projects while using parts of one and parts of the other to formulate an innovative way to sustain a project.A thorough review of the 3A Project awardees offered us insights not only into effective communication among agencies but also stakeholders' engagement and practice-based evidence.

Stakeholders' Engagement
Awardees engaged experts and/or agencies for "support on transferring knowledge through video clips" [Project #1] or "recruited community volunteers from Newfangled Mother … and collaborated with NGOs, hospitals and vocational centres to combine support" [Project #3].Another project involved the cross-sector collaboration of professionals, including academics, social workers, nutritionists, oral health specialists, child injury prevention specialists, and physiotherapists [Project #11], whereas another "collaborated with a lot of strategic partners from various disciplines, including social services workers, lawyers, mediators, clinical psychologists, and school representatives" [Project #22].

Practice-based Evidence
Some awardees collaborated with academic groups on pilot projects and conducted rigorous research.Others also explored future opportunities to conduct research, exchange practical wisdom, consolidate the body of knowledge on relationships, and share evidence-based clinical practices.Awardees acknowledged the importance of research as follows: "Data collected can be used for a longitudinal study to evaluate the effectiveness of the program" [Project #2]; the "findings of the project could be used as baseline data for future research" [Project #19]; "qualitative and quantitative research will be conducted in the future to understand the needs of caregivers, as well as to evaluate program effectiveness" [Project #20]; commissioning an academic group "to conduct a needs assessment study" [Project #29], and working on "a larger-scale efficacy study in the future" with "more participants" [Project #34].

Best Practices to Evidence-based Interventions for Family Well-being
This study provides insights into best practices of 3A Project awardees that aimed to enhance family well-being in an Asian context, based on a multimethod qualitative research design with document review on 3A Project and a total of 40 written documents of all eight finalists of the five 3A Project years in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018, competing for Gold Award, Silver Award, Bronze Award, and five Outstanding Awards, as well as four in-depth interviews with team leaders of the 3A Project awardees.On the whole, 3A Project awardees demonstrated six best practices in congruence with CIFA's mission, and the findings suggest that participationor engagement-based model for the award-winning process, known as the PIE-ISI model, is being developed and promoted in the regional and international arena, with three key purposes: (i) to serve as a guideline and checklist for assessment criteria, (ii) to set a benchmark for projects that wish to compete for an award, and (iii) to provide a reference for local and international organizations.
The family unit is considered to rank among the most central institutions in Asian contexts, family well-being has been a major concern for decades, and various programs and consortia have striven to support families in developing their potential and minimizing risks (Conger et al., 2009;Ferraris et al., 2022;Prime et al., 2020).Given the complex nature of any family system, together with economic, political, societal, and technological changes, the trajectory in promoting family well-being has become more challenging yet remains worth pursuing.In that light, the 3A Project takes the lead to set clear, high-standard criteria for its applicants, which guides 3A Project awardees to formulate rationales with forward-looking perspectives anchored in social needs and geared toward filling existing service gaps, as well as to focus on a specific scope of the population in stimulating targeted intervention strategies to ensure social responsiveness.The 3A Project has successfully nurtured various organizations to strategically search for service gaps and proactively respond to social issues with innovative ideas in Asian contexts.
Collaboration is key to promoting and enhancing family well-being (Alves et al., 2007;Asakawa et al., 2017;Windsor et al., 2018).Because the family is a complex system, effective interventions rely on compiling knowledge and expertise from multiple disciplines, including academia, psychiatry, psychology, counselling, medicine, nursing, speech therapy, and family mediation, as well as business and/or government sectors.3A Project awardees actively created teams that best match the contents of interventions, and in many cases, multidisciplinary teams have been formed to address complex needs.They also acknowledged the importance of capacity-building skills of team members and, in turn, provided training before interventions commenced.The research team also observed that the awardees embodied the idea that "sharing is caring"; they compiled training materials in both traditional (i.e., leaflets, manuals, and/or booklets) and digital (i.e., online resources) forms, and some also held training workshops to transfer knowledge to other peers in the field.That training not only empowers professionals in related fields but also provides insights for organizations that wish to develop their programs.
The evaluation of a program is the first step toward envisioning its future.The effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of programs are important indicators for their future development and are valued components in the 3A Project.Some 3A Project awardees have integrated outcome and process evaluation into the implementation process, such that continuous assessment and evaluation could gauge the programs' effectiveness and whether the direction of the programs should be adjusted.Awardees also paid special attention to the financial aspect of their programs and strove for cost-effectiveness to ensure that future scaling-up actions would remain possible.At the same time, collecting feedback from key stakeholders using mixed methods was key to providing user-centred interventions and/or services to meet the unmet needs of stakeholders (Given et al., 2011;Miller et al., 2019).
In the face of economic, political, societal, and technological changes, innovative elements in programs and services are pivotal (Farao et al., 2020;Shek, 2020).3A Project awardees, directed by the guidelines disseminated by the 3A Project, devised new values underpinning social issues that expand the understanding of family diversity and acknowledge the needs of marginal groups.Under their programs, they encouraged a new model of participation and developed new tools and materials to facilitate implementation.With technological advancement, some 3A Project awardees also created and built interactive knowledge and learning platform for professionals, volunteers, and/or the public.Innovative ideas extended to modes of funding, comprehensive project structures, and breakthroughs in traditional modes of funding to scale up programs and expand their impacts.
The starting point of any successful program is not only its design but also its sustainability (Garcia-Lopez et al., 2020;Griffith, 2017;Hadwera et al., 2021).3A Project awardees have striven their best to contribute to knowledge transfer and build a knowledge hub to ensure their programs' replicability in local, regional, and/or international arenas.As mentioned, they provided educational and training materials to peers via traditional as well as digital channels.Some awardees also hosted training workshops for capacity building or disseminated program details and progress, together with evaluations of internal and external networks.Another way to ensure the sustainability of programs lies in regularly providing information to funders and stakeholders to identify new funding opportunities to serve more families in need.
True excellence is the product of synergy, not only among individuals but also among institutions (Ludolph & Schulz, 2015).3A Project awardees recognized the importance of institutional synergy and held institutions accountable for their projects, from their design to their implementation and evaluation to their dissemination.They diligently and humbly engaged experts and/or agencies in project development, implementation, and evaluation processes.To ensure that their programs were feasible and practical, they referred to evidence-based practices with local and global sensitivity, which involved fully utilizing the internal resources of an institution while simultaneously creating additional opportunities for different institutional collaborations to enhance the overall impacts of the programs.

Lessons Learned
Identifying best practices and consolidation of social impacts of interventions to enhance family well-being require comprehensive evaluation framework, yet it is imperative that professionals and researchers remain flexible in adapting our proposed model.First, researchers should be aware of the cultural contexts where the programs stemmed from to obtain a thorough understanding of the project rationales.Second, direct communication with the frontline staff implementing the programs will provide researchers with the opportunity to gain in-depth knowledge on the challenges and potential solutions during implementation.Third, the primary and secondary outcomes for evaluation should be defined clearly.In addition, program evaluation can be conducted on a longitudinal basis to include short-term, mid-term, and long-term impacts.Fourth, with innovative programs proliferated with technological advancement, researchers should consider assessing if there are ethical and security concerns over the implementation process.Fifth, researchers and professionals need to collaborate and develop a knowledge hub to enhance sustainability and replicability of effective programs.Finally, collaborations between different sectors should be strengthened.It is also essential that program developers to include potential uses as peer researchers to co-create programs that are feasible, suitable, and demonstratable.

Limitations
Several limitations should be considered when interpreting the current study's findings.Considering methodological aspect of the present study, both strength and limitations were reflected.On the strength aspect, this study adopted a multimethod approach which enhanced the validity of findings.It was also guided by logic model as a conceptual framework, which contributed to its scientific merits.On the limitation side, restricting our document reviews to documents of the 3A Project and the 40 3A Project awardees.These documents were limited in the sample, but it provided a narrow scope for extracting best practices based on a "best-of-the-best" principle.Future research could examine the logic model of other applicants to understand the barriers to planning, implementing, and evaluating family well-being projects.Second, thematic analysis was adopted to formulate the six best practices of 3A Project awardees.Insights were drawn from written documents with word limitations.To increase the understanding of 3A Project applicants, future research could adopt text mining to further examine the sentiments expressed in the submission documents as well as to understand the major trends or focuses of family well-being issues.Third, we only included four team leaders of 3A Project awardees to join in-depth interviews.Future research should expand the sample size and invite frontline staff to share their experience and views.Fourth, since this paper is focusing on best practices in enhancing family well-being in Asian context, generalization to other socio-cultural contexts should be cautious.Further studies should expand the scope and include projects developed and implemented in different cultural backgrounds.Lastly, dialects or special meanings of certain phrases under specific cultural contexts and instability of the Internet during online interviews were barriers in articulating the exact meanings, but the research team confirmed the content with the interviewees after transcription.

Conclusion
This study reports six best practices being identified based on multimethod qualitative research based on the PIE-ISI model.It also concludes that the 3A Project initiated by CIFA has achieved its mission and vision to "provide a platform for transdisciplinary collaboration with the ultimate goal to strengthen family functioning and promote family health."Positioned as a regional organization, CIFA should realize that with the mentioned best practices engendered and consolidated from the 3A Project, family well-being could be better promoted and empowered in recognition of its international significance.With the sturdy experience of the 3A Project as an initiative nurtured by the regional platform established by CIFA, family well-being could be promoted while generating impacts in different spheres and at different levels.Thus, on the solid grounds developed so far, further efforts can be undertaken to produce more synergy by appealing for active involvement from more countries and regions in Asia, as well as from sectors other than social services.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Visualization of a multimethod qualitative study design This project aimed to serve older adults with dementia and their caregivers.It optimized physical and mental health, functional ability, and well-being of demented patients.It also empowered family caregivers in providing care at home. to serve incarcerated parents, their spouses, and their children.It equipped inmates and their spouses with parenting knowledge and skills to improve their family well-being and parenting skills.to serve families who had lost their only child.It facilitated these families to deal with problems associated with their health, emotional well-being and care in old age, and expand social support to explore an alternative family-focused intervention strategy with a physical, gamification-enhanced play platform to divert family members' attention away from their phones and refocus on a joyful and cheerful engagements for the whole family.HKSARNote.HKSAR, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of People's Republic of China; ROC, Republic of China.

Table 1 .
A summary of social service structure in selected Asia communities  Adult Health Services  Elderly Health Services  Funeral Expenses Management Note.HKSAR, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of People's Republic of China; ROC, Republic of China.The social service structure is summarized based on scholarly and/or governmental sources: (Malaysia, 2021; Ministry of Health & Welfare, 2021; People's Republic of

Table 2 .
PIE-ISI model: Themes, subthemes, and quotes "Experiential learning enriched by multi-media exhibits, demonstrations, as well as audio and visual effects, brings out abstract concepts such as life, time, and ageing" [Project #30]Transformative service models"Intervention process -a pre-placement interview; home visits; installation; follow up; removal of the "Lamb-Lamp"; post intervention interview"[Project #40] This project aimed to serve female psychotropic substance abusers who lived in Kowloon East district (Hong Kon) and were pregnant or had newborn babies of two years old or below.It facilitated the participants' family members to act as support network through family supporting services.This project aimed to facilitate cancer patients and their family caregivers in facing stressors and crises brought on by the onset and/or the recurrence of cancer, thus, to allow them leading a "new normal" life by taking control over daily routine.