Intervene early to help disadvantaged families: Lily Neo

Intervene early to help disadvantaged families: Lily Neo

SINGAPORE - Veteran MP Lily Neo (Tanjong Pagar GRC) made a push on Monday for more aggressive and earlier intervention to help children from disadvantaged families.

Her suggestions include identifying at-risk children for follow-up with their families when they register their child's birth, and reserving some places in pre-schools for them. Another idea she offered is for greater collaboration among ministries to give such families help, ranging from child care to housing to jobs.

Her call prompted a detailed response from Social and Family Development Minister Chan Chun Sing, who stressed that the integration of social services is the key to providing a leg-up for children of disadvantaged families.

Dr Neo, who champions the cause of the disadvantaged regularly in Parliament and whose ward includes a disproportionate number of poor families, had called for an adjournment motion to give her more time to speak on the issue.

For 15 minutes, the general practitioner spoke on behalf of families headed by single mothers, unemployed fathers or parents in prison, broken families without proper housing, and families of children with special needs.

She asked that more help be given to train these parents in parenting skills, and to improve their literacy, numeracy and confidence, so that they can get jobs.

Citing research in Britain and Canada that shows the influence of the early years on a child's later achievements and behaviour, Dr Neo called for "effective and evidence-based interventions".

She lamented that despite Singapore's long-running policy of helping the poor to do well in school to move up the social ladder and its emphasis on self-reliance, there are still disadvantaged children.

"Disparities between poor and non-poor children exist from as early as Primary 1 and, not surprisingly, many disadvantaged children can never catch up," she said.

Thanking Dr Neo for her ideas and views, Mr Chan said equity, efficacy and efficiency were the principles underpinning Singapore's social services. Equity means giving more subsidy to those with less, so that a family earning $1,000 or so a month can send their child to a childcare centre at $3 a month.

Efficacy and efficiency require integration of social services, he added. His ministry is working with various agencies to roll out a Vulnerable Families programme later this year that will combine different aspects of help.

Integration also means enlisting the community, voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs) and parents to give help not only later in life but also early on.

Mr Chan cited a fund for VWOs to roll out programmes in pre-schools for disadvantaged children, and help with reading for those who do not speak English at home, before they reach primary school.

Help on the ground also needs to be integrated, from grassroots leaders seeking out children who do not go to pre-school, to Ministry of Social and Family Development officers based in HDB towns coordinating efforts across agencies, to foster parents taking in children in distress.

A final cog in the wheel is integrated IT services, said Mr Chan, which will allow social workers to spend less time filling up forms, case files to be transferred between agencies when a needy family moves, and data to be mined to forecast needs in five to 10 years.

chinlian@sph.com.sg


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