Care-giving Arrangements to Safeguard Children's Well-being

Dr Janil Puthucheary asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) under what circumstances will the Ministry get directly involved in care-giving arrangements for a child where his parent, guardian or caregiver has been diagnosed with mental illness and has a history of violent behaviour; (b) whether the Ministry will provide arrangements for the child to be under state care in order to protect his safety; and (c) how many of such cases has the Ministry handled over the last five years.

The Minister for Social and Family Development (Mr Chan Chun Sing): Mdm Speaker, MSF takes a serious view of each referred case that raises concerns over a child's safety. We conduct investigations to assess the risks posed to the child's safety, the needs of the child and family, and work out an appropriate intervention plan for the family.

Depending on the circumstances of the case, the child may be able to remain in the parents' care, with safety plans and support services in place or if an alternative care arrangement is necessary, we will first explore kinship care, followed by foster care and as a last resort, placement in a residential home. Each year, of all cases referred to MSF for investigation, about 10% or fewer than 20 cases involved parents or caregivers with mental illness and violent behaviour.

Not all cases are referred or known to the Ministry. There are potentially vulnerable cases in the community whom we would like to extend support to. This is where we hope the community can play a part to help us to reach out to these families. We can all stay vigilant and alert the authorities if we come across any children in vulnerable circumstances.

Families facing stress can also seek help early by visiting the nearest Family Service Centre or Social Service Office. As the issues can be complex, we need the collaboration of different stakeholders and professionals to provide multi-dimensional support for these families.

Mdm Speaker: Dr Janil.

Dr Janil Puthucheary (Pasir Ris-Punggol): Thank you, Mdm Speaker. I have two supplementary questions for the Minister. When a child or any vulnerable person who is known to the Ministry or any other agencies, suffers an injury or unfortunate death, is there a need for a formal review process or inquiry? Some jurisdictions have Standing Committees or confidential inquiries where any death or injury to a vulnerable person is automatically investigated to identify systemic issues, especially those that exist between agencies. Would the Minister consider that there is a need for this in our circumstances?

My second supplementary question: in terms of separating a child from a family, it is necessarily a very difficult decision to make, and the bar is appropriately set high. My question is to what extent are resource constraints a factor in this consideration? In particular, do we have sufficient resources for fostering? Do we have enough families that are stepping forward or volunteering themselves for foster care and is there anything we can do to make available that path to provide an appropriate home and a place for safety for these vulnerable children?

Mr Chan Chun Sing: Mdm Speaker, with reference to the first question, yes, there is indeed a formal review process should any children under our care come into harm's way or should there be an unfortunate incident where a death occurs. But there are two separate processes. One is for cases that are known to us but not under the Child Protection Service. And the other one has to do with children under our care and that could include children under residential care.

In both scenarios, in any incident where anything untoward happens to the young child, we would initiate a review process like what the Member has suggested. We will look through our own processes to see where we can tighten, or where there might have been lapses, we will take action accordingly. So, there are processes in place whenever such an unfortunate incident happens. For us, we take each and every case very seriously because whether the child is directly under the charge of the Child Protection Service or is under one of our programmes, we would always want all the stakeholders to come together to look at the case again to see how we can do better, especially when the child suffers an injury. We would want to see how we can protect the child and prevent this from happening again.

On the second question about the separation of the child from their family – indeed, we agree with the Member that it is always very difficult and painful for us to have to take a child away from the family. That is why when we look at the cases and do the case conference for each and every individual case, we do what we call, a triage system whereby we have the three levels of care arrangement.

The first level of care arrangement is, as far as possible, for the child to continue to stay with the immediate family or one of his kin. We believe that in such an environment, the child is best able to re-integrate with his immediate family, rehabilitate and re-establish the family ties where possible.

In the event that we are unable to have the child placed in a relative's home, or an immediate family member's home, the second tier would be foster-care. Again, we believe that this is still better than a residential or institutional environment because this provides a more natural environment for the child to grow up and be re-integrated into the community.

As a final resort, if we do not have family support and, are unable to find a suitable foster parent for the child, we will put the child into an institutional home. But even at this stage, we will be constantly looking out for opportunities to re-integrate the child with the family or if not, to bring the child to a suitable foster family for him or her to grow up in a more homely environment.

I do not think at this point in time resources have been a constraint. However, we would like to encourage more families to come forward to provide foster care for the children. I have recently made known at the 25th Anniversary of the Muhammadiyah Welfare Home that we are indeed looking at more families coming forward to join the Foster Parents Scheme. Even if a new foster family cannot take on the responsibility immediately, we are exploring ways to induct the family progressively into the Foster Parents Scheme, and also to help the child build up the relationship progressively with the foster parent family.

Like in many other countries, we have found that the results for the child is more positive if we are able to encourage the child to stay in a homely environment in the community rather than a residential or institutional environment, which is always artificial at its best.