Free and Confidential Counselling Services for Social Workers

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Social and Family Development whether the Ministry will look into ensuring social workers are provided with counselling services similar to the confidential and free counselling service administered by the Law Society of Singapore (LSS) in conjunction with its partner company for members of LSS.

The Member has also filed a question on the availability of compassionate leave for social workers who have encountered particularly stressful events in the course of their casework for a subsequent Sitting. I will address both questions in this reply.

Social Service Agencies (SSAs), including those that run Family Service Centres (FSCs), determine their own staff welfare and leave policies. While MSF and the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) do not mandate or monitor the leave policies across SSAs, SSAs, generally, offer compassionate leave as part of their staff benefits. At the same time, NCSS promulgates best practices related to compensation and staff welfare, as well as offer experts as mentors to human resource practitioners in SSAs.

We recognise that the nature of work in the social service sector can take its toll and social service professionals may encounter particularly stressful events in the course of their work. To safeguard their mental well-being and give them an opportunity to recharge, MSF and NCSS have put in place several initiatives, including the National Care Hotline (NCH) and Sabbatical Leave Scheme (SLS). The NCH provides emotional and psychological support to those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, including professionals working in social services. The SLS is available to individuals with at least five years of direct work experience in their respective professional fields. It offers up to 10 weeks of paid leave so that they can recharge themselves, and a Professional Advancement Sponsorship to refresh their professional competencies.

MSF and NCSS have also been engaging SSAs to raise awareness on the importance of organisational support for their employees’ mental well-being and to develop a culture of self-care. We have conferred with social work leaders on balancing staff well-being with maintaining service delivery standards, particularly during this period of high workload and uncertainty brought on by the pandemic. SSAs are mindful of the need to support their employees’ mental well-being and have undertaken various initiatives. For example, during the start of the circuit breaker, AWWA established a care team of social workers and psychologists, for their staff to dial in to and seek support from. The Dyslexia Association of Singapore (DAS) also conducted mindfulness and counselling programmes for their employees, to provide advice, resources and training to improve their mental well-being.

In addition, social service professionals can access self-care and coping strategies, through subsidised courses offered by the Social Service Institute (SSI) under NCSS. NCSS also offers a range of schemes and initiatives that SSAs can tap on to strengthen their human resource practices and capabilities. These include the People Practice Consultancy (PPC), Organisation Development Journey (ODJ) and the Transformation Support Scheme (TSS). Apart from these schemes, SSAs can tap on various other grants under the VWOs-Charities Capability Fund (VCF). The Community Capability Trust (CCT) will open for applications from April 2022 and will build upon our existing efforts to further support SSAs to achieve organisational excellence.

Furthermore, to complement the staff welfare benefits offered by SSAs and to emphasise the importance of the well-being of our social service practitioners, NCSS launched the Caring for Social Service Professionals Scheme in May 2021. The scheme provides co-funding of up to 90% (capped at $2,000 per SSA) for SSAs to offer professional counselling services to their staff. To date, 63 SSAs, which employ over 12,000 professionals, are on board the scheme.