Update on Vulnerable Families Pilot Programme

Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for Social and Family Development with regard to the Vulnerable Families Pilot Programme announced in 2014 at the Ministry's Committee of Supply debate (a) whether the Ministry can provide an update on the implementation and assessed effectiveness of this pilot programme; (b) whether this pilot programme has been expanded or shelved; and (c) what have been the estimated long-term savings in resources by tackling these hardcore cases and whether these savings are realised.

MSF implemented the Vulnerable Families Pilot Programme, also known as the Strengthening Families Together (SFT) Pilot, from January 2014 to February 2017. The aim of the SFT Pilot was to improve the family's well-being and enhance developmental outcomes for their children.

The SFT Pilot comprised two key elements: (1) enhancing social workers' effectiveness through training on Government policies and considerations, and access to dedicated Government points-of-contact to discuss appeals or flexibilities to support clients; and (2) encouraging Government agencies to exercise greater flexibility based on social workers' professional assessments.

Two hundred and forty families benefitted from the pilot. One hundred and ninety-two appeals, for 156 families, were made by the SFT social workers largely surrounding issues, such as housing and immigration, and 92% of these appeals were successful in enabling the families to access help.

Overall, families on the pilot showed improvements in family functioning, coping self-efficacy, and children's hope and resilience. However, two-thirds of the families continued to require case management from FSCs after the pilot concluded, reflecting the complexity of their issues and the runway needed for them to stabilise. The main focus of the pilot was to see how we could improve social service interventions for complex cases, and we have not set out to quantify savings from the pilot. Rather, we have applied some of the learning points to better support and equip FSCs in the case management of families.

Through the pilot, MSF found that the critical success factors in effectively uplifting these families were (a) social workers' professional competency and knowledge of Government policies, (b) having social workers and Government agencies work together and collaborate effectively, and (c) having MSF come in to facilitate such collaborations and conversations, where necessary.

Based on the findings and recommendations of the pilot, MSF rolled out training for new and existing FSC social workers on working with Government agencies effectively. This has now been incorporated as core training for all FSCs. In 2017, MSF set up a Systems Capability Team (SCT) which aimed to strengthen the partnerships between the FSCs and Government agencies, so they can work better together to support families facing complex needs and barriers. The work of the SCT has, since 2019, been subsumed under the Social Service Systems Office, which was set up to identify and resolve system issues cutting across agencies which might impede the successful resolution of complex cases as well as cases not covered within conventional policy boundaries.

Collaborations between social workers and Government agencies have also become a lynchpin of the ComLink initiative that MSF is in the process of scaling up nation-wide to all towns in Singapore – a key feature of ComLink is Government agencies and community agencies working hand-in-hand to uplift families with children in rental housing.