SOCIAL SERVICE PROFESSIONALS

8.00 pm

Ms Braema Mathiaparanam (Nominated Member): I am sorry to keep the House at this time of the evening, but we have no choice and I will get straightaway to the business.

Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak on the professionals in the social service sector. I thank the Minister for hanging on right up to this moment.

Madam, I would like to highlight the work of these professionals, drawing special attention to their status, their professional growth and the current system in which they operate.

First a glimpse into the situation as it stands today. There is a shortage of social workers and we all know that. Just to illustrate the severity - two recent reports in the newspapers attest to this - Straits Times in January and another in June in the NewPaper. Both carried reports that only four out of 10 in every cohort of graduates from the Social Work and Psychology Department at the National University of Singapore actually enter the field to work as social workers. And I am told that in three to five years' time about half from each cohort of these graduates who enter the field to work as social workers then leave the service, often citing burn-out as a reason. Yet, it is estimated in the same Straits Times' article that, each year, 40 new positions go a-begging for social workers.

This figure does not take into account the number of vacant positions due to resignations.

What do these figures mean in reality? The National University of Singapore admits about 150 students each year major in social work at the Department of Social Work and Psychology. Almost 50 new graduates, qualified in social work, go on to become social workers - that four in 10 figure. Of this group, in three or five years' time, perhaps, only 25 will remain in the workforce as social workers. This is a shortage. It is worrying. Add to it, another dimension. Looking at the nature of the degree in social work under the current modular structure and the liberal arts approach within the Faculty of Arts and Social Science at the National University of Singapore, students can graduate with a degree in social work by fulfilling a minimum quota of eight core modules out of the 24 modules offered by the department. This is well and good for students who wish to diversify and keep their career options open.

But when these same graduates enter the social service sector to work as social workers - listening to what academics and practitioners on the ground have told me - they are still lacking in skills that will give them the depth to deal with clients effectively. Hence, the dilemma. A tight labour market where the social workers scene is concerned and new graduates who cannot prepare to go on to further immediate training to become more competent in this field. In fact, figures from MCDS and the National Council of Social Service in newspaper reports two years ago showed that 30% of its 550 professionals in the social service sector do not have social work qualifications. Add to that the current group of community development officers, who number between 10 and 40, at the five CDCs, who work in the community to help the less fortunate, with very few among them trained in social work. So not only do we have a shortage but we also have a situation where some social workers, new graduates, already need more training to function more effectively.

Let us also look at another group of professionals who are making their inroad into the social service sector, the much needed group of - the psychotherapists, family therapists, counsellors, psychologists. While these individuals enter the field with the best of intentions, there must also be a way to ascertain the nature of their qualifications to maintain standards within the social service sector. I am told that some of the post-graduate degrees, doctorates and certificates, come from institutions that practitioners do not totally endorse. Moreover, such professionals have many entry points into the service - being appointed by voluntary welfare organisations, schools and other institutions, which having the autonomy make such appointments and peg their salaries to the qualifications and experience. While it is good to have this autonomy it also gives rise to approval of a range of qualifications which has already raised questions at the ground level.

Hence, it is my suggestion that the four organisations catering to the different professionals in the social service sector, namely, the Singapore Association of Social Workers (SASW), the Psychological Society, the Society of Marital Therapists and Psychotherapists and the Singapore Association of Counselling, work with the Ministry of Community Development and Sports and the National Council of Social Service to build up a common registry and an accreditation scheme for both short-term and long-term courses, such that officers will be well-qualified and can be employed with similar salary packages pegged to their qualifications that are approved, and come under an approved scheme.

I would also like to suggest that the Ministry of Community Development and Sports could also look at infrastructure and beef up an existing organisation - The Family Resource Training Centre - or work with the National University of Singapore to restructure the Department of Social Work and Psychology into a faculty on its own or a training/research centre on its own, akin to the National Institute of Education, that trains teachers.

Let me just elaborate the advantage in that. With such a centre, curriculum can be well-planned. There will be enough scope and expertise to expand on programmes, such that existing officers can come back to upgrade their skills and, at the same time, it can also bring on board quite a number of counsellors out there and upgrade them all to a certain set of standardised course skills. After all, what is there to stop this. Because, right now, teachers have NIE, the lawyers-to-be have their own Law Faculty, the medical students have their Medical Faculty. Why should social workers be any different?

Such a one-stop faculty, or centre, can handle all matters related to training and accreditation for all professionals. This centre can be modelled after the well-reputed George Warren Brown School of Social Work, an entity unto itself at the University of Washington to which, I think, the Ministry sends quite a number of its officers for upgrading skills.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, let me now move on to the second issue here of how we recognise and reward those who stay in the profession. A new social work graduate receives a median monthly salary of $2,114 as the starting salary, according to the Ministry of Manpower's Report on Wages in Singapore 2000, as was reported in the newspapers.

A check with VWOs on the National Council of Social Service suggested wage rates show that a social worker with a general degree starts off with a gross salary of between $1,844 and $1,972. A teacher in training gets between $1,967 and $2,144 for the same qualification while training to be a teacher at the NIE. A nurse with a degree in nursing has his/her starting salary as $1,800.

The social workers lot is a tough lot, as every profession would say. But I think when you are dealing with the vulnerable in society, it can be very tough on the individual social worker. Hence, the burn-out. Hence, the drop-outs. Hence, the attrition rate.

Going further, while these salaries are there, let us look at the workload. Although salaries are perhaps not as attractive as other vocations, the workload of the social worker is not diminishing. In fact, it is increasing.

A check with five FSCs for the month of July alone shows that each centre now handles between eight and 10 new cases a month while each social worker manages between 30 and 40 cases per month. About a fifth of these cases are to be closed in a year by the social workers. Social workers average about four at each of these centres. They said their time-consuming cases are those dealing with marital and parenting problems. They said that the cases, especially in the first half of this year, have also doubled because many clients are coming in with their financial problems. So that is the current situation.

Going further to policies that have been implemented in recent years. With greater enlightenment and appreciation, the courts today rule mandatory counselling for juveniles beyond parental control, violent spouses and couples going for a divorce. All these cases do land at the social workers door. Going by statistics on social trends, we can see the potential increase in workload for social workers - the number of divorces or separations has doubled in the last 10 years from 1.3% in 1990 to 2.5% in the year 2000; the number of juvenile delinquents had risen last year to 31.4% per 100,000 young people, though arrests have fallen; violence in the home still averages at about six cases every day, according to police statistics. With greater awareness, there will be more reports on rapes, incest, etc, cases that cannot be wrapped up in five counselling sessions, cases that make a demand on the individual social worker on his/her own emotional and psychological make-up and energy.

And then there are our national trends. Also, with an ageing population and a widening income gap, all this will just mean more at the social workers door. So what then can we do about all these? To deal with such cases and with rising sophistication in a Singapore client, it becomes very important for the social workers to keep abreast of the latest counselling skills. And also, the MCDS advocates family interventionist programme to handle clients effectively. These are time consuming. So if we just look at all that impinges on a social worker, increased case load, time consuming cases, cases that are becoming more complex, skills that you want to acquire but are too tight for time to acquire and not so favourable salary package, I do not think things sound so rosy at all for the social worker.

Coming back to the situation where the salary is concerned, I am told that, currently, the social worker's salary package is a 10% lag behind those senior officers in the civil service. Bear with me, I know time is ticking by, just to study the background a bit on how the salaries have been pegged for the social workers. In 1995, the salaries of social workers were aligned to that of the civil service's Senior Officers' Scheme. In 2000, voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs) adopted the NWC wage adjustment scheme used by the civil service. But then the civil service moved ahead again and further implemented salary revisions for its superscale and timescale officers. Performance bonuses were also introduced. Currently, VWOs are grappling with what it means to have performance bonuses and an appraisal scheme that should follow that. So with all these schemes that the civil service has put in, social workers have to catch up all the time where salaries and performance bonuses are concerned.

As social workers work in different fields - in hospitals, in schools, in VWOs and also, now, in CDCs - their salaries are adjusted by the various institutions that they work in. There are disparities, and social workers do compare which institution is providing better for them. This does not augur well for the social workers. It is perhaps timely that the Ministry of Community Development and Sports, NCSS, MOE, MOH, as well as the PA, could come together to plan the career development structure for social workers, as has been done for teachers under the Ministry of Education, look at the salary structures that they should be having as well as the training schemes that they can enjoy and look at a massive recruitment drive, such that this shortage can be weaning the way in the next few years.

This, I am sure, the Ministry is already thinking of from what I hear. I would like at the same time to emphasise that recruiting males must also be a top priority here. Because we have a lot of cases of spousal violence, children who need that kind of male role modelling even within the social service sector, male social workers whom spouses can talk to, etc. Currently, we have too few males in the social service sector.

So this career development plan, which is in the making I hear, should also look into ways of recruiting males into the service too as their help is needed to offer counselling to violent spouses, many of whom are males.

The Ministry is already making some headway. Its efforts are appreciated in that it has increased funding through a VWO Capability Fund of $30 million and recently another $7 million was added for 80 VWOs to run programmes. All this means staff can be paid to run programmes and staff can be retained.

Yet, without a systematic structure defining a social worker's career path, the training needs and a revised salary structure that can be applied across employers, these gestures run the risk of becoming band-aids, short-term solutions.

Professionals in the social service sector are not volunteers, and it is not morally right of us to look into this issue without trying to give them the best deal when they are coping with a very vulnerable community within our society.

In this revision, may I also suggest that the Ministry needs to re-examine its 50-50 co-funding structure that it shares with the National Council of Social Service, the reason being that when it is pegged at 50-50, the Council does not have the flexibility to reward social workers adequately and the cycle is perpetuated. Since I am at liberty to suggest a ratio, I would like to suggest that this be 70-30 or 80-20, so that the whole scheme can improve from a bottom-up approach.

The next area which I would like to draw attention to is the role of the social service professional. Because of this shortage, social workers are often functioning as just doers, meaning appraising client needs, sourcing for help, and counselling them. However, we are ignoring a greater and more fundamental role of the social worker - preventive programmes. They are the professionals in the field, with more experience and energy that we can tap on to design programmes. We can use their management skills, etc, to further develop the non-profit sector, get deeper into research, such that the social worker can become a stronger advocate, commenting on the community's needs. We need more Laena Thambyahs to talk about the needs of children with special needs, more Anthony Yeos to remind us about what life is worth, and more Ron Chandran Dudleys to remind us of the needs of the disabled. Their voices must be heard, and the social worker is that advocate for the less privileged and less fortunate in our community. But when there is not enough time and too much work, they run the risk of just becoming doers, and so we do ignore the pleas from people whom we do not normally hear about.

I would also like to suggest that we can tap the expertise of the social workers to develop joint curriculum projects with the various Ministries, especially the Ministry of Education, such that communication skills, one of the fundamental problems always faced by social workers, are put into place within the school system in a directed manner.

Lastly, I would like to suggest to the Ministry that there is right now a window of opportunity to plug the gap where the shortage is concerned, by enhancing and developing a para-counselling layer with help from NUS, Nanyang Polytechnic and the unions. Using the Skills Development Fund and the Lifelong Learning Endowment Fund, retrenched workers of sound character who can be assessed to be fit candidates ---

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Order. Ms Braema, you have used up your 20 minutes.

Ms Braema Mathiaparanam: Can I just wrap up in two points?

Mdm Deputy Speaker: No, you have used up your 20 minutes. Dr Yaacob.

Ms Braema Mathiaparanam: Just two points. I will wrap it up. I am not reading. I am just wrapping it up.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Just one minute, then.

Ms Braema Mathiaparanam: Yes. Just that the funds can be used, and I know that there is already one fund for the diploma programme. But the certificate level for Nanyang Polytechnic too can be enhanced.

The Acting Minister for Community Development and Sports (Assoc. Prof. Dr Yaacob Ibrahim): Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to respond. I would like, first, to thank Ms Braema Mathiaparanam for raising all the suggestions. I do agree with her that social workers are an important professional component in the social service sector. I would like to assure her that as I may not be able to answer all of her queries tonight, we will look into her suggestions and that my Ministry and NCSS will consider actively the suggestion she has made in areas such as social workers' career development and professional upgrading. And to consider some of the suggestions that she has made as we develop a master plan for the social worker community in Singapore.

Let me just touch on a few things first, beginning with the last, because that is the first thing that one can remember. The hon. Member spoke about the role of social workers beyond merely being part of the social delivery system, but their expertise and knowledge can be tapped. I certainly agree with Ms Braema that we should look towards the social workers in terms of getting direct feedback and knowledge on the problems they face and the kind of skills that they need. I understand that this is something that is on-going between the VWOs and NCSS where there is constant dialogue and discussion.

As to whether or not we can tap their expertise in terms of her first suggestion, of developing a curriculum, I think we should consider it. I am not clear about the format, but it is something which we can certainly work towards.

With regard to Ms Braema's point about plugging the gap by ensuring that there are enough para-counsellors, I certainly agree with that. I am not familiar about the certificate programme that she mentioned, but I would certainly look into that as I do know that some organisations have actually looked into training their own para-counsellors because of the shortage of social workers.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, the first point the hon. Member has raised is a very important point - the shortage of social workers and how we recognise them. As Members might know, we have launched the VCF $30 million fund. Just to clarify: the $7 million annually is an increase in funding that we gave to VWOs this year. So there is money that is available to the VWOs at this point in time for them to use in terms of research, training, etc. We have also launched, with the Ministry of Manpower, the Strategic Conversion Manpower Programme in order to train people who wish to convert from whatever occupation they were in, into social work.

Hence, we do have a plan in place to address these issues. Overall, I agree with Ms Braema that there is a need for a master plan, which NCSS is looking into. We need to develop something which is more comprehensive from the point at which they graduate from NUS, to the point that they begin to work, and the sort of training they will need. This is something which we will have to build up over time. Ms Braema mentioned about FRTC, which is a good example of a setting within the VWO to provide training for social workers. There have been some suggestions about setting up a social service training institute. This is also currently being studied as to whether there is a need for a training institute for people to go to get new skills and new knowledge about what is going on. As mentioned by Ms Braema, there are now social trends which are developing, and social workers need to be kept abreast.

The master plan is not ready yet. The thrust of the master plan is to look at the overall development of the professional social worker, from the time he graduates to the time he goes out into the field, and how he works his way through the VWOs. I cannot promise that we can get male social workers. We will try our very best. As Members know, we have tried to address the problem of shortage of social workers by providing scholarships to NUS for people to gain some expertise in social work, both at the undergraduate and the Master's level. These are some of the efforts that we have put in place.

As to whether or not we can develop a system where we have a common registry and accreditation, we have to look into the building blocks first. Do we have, firstly, a comprehensive training programme? Are we clear about what are the core competencies which are needed in the various areas? Ms Braema mentioned about aging. That is a new phenomenon. What exactly is the competency that we need? So, in areas such as gerontology counselling that we are now looking into, what are the sorts of skills that we need? Some VWOs are in discussion with some foreign experts. I can be very candid. They have come to see me to discuss some of their suggestions. These are areas which are evolving, and we will certainly want to understand how best we can fit in this particular expertise that is needed because this is a phenomenon which will come in 2010 and beyond.

So, we have to understand the core competencies which are needed and then identify what are the training requirements for them. As Ms Braema rightly pointed out, when they graduate from NUS - I am sure Prof. Ngiam will agree with me - they are more generalists rather than specialists. They will have to go through some form of training.

Ms Braema also mentioned about recognition - in this case, remuneration. She is right that NCSS has looked into the salary scheme to follow very closely the salary scheme of the civil service. As to whether they can match the kinds of schemes that are in place for teachers and nurses, this is best left for NCSS to discuss with the VWOs. Having said that, I would like to assure the hon. Member also that, to a large extent, it is up to the VWOs to pay their social workers. Some are able to pay more using their own funds. The manpower cost is already incorporated in our funds to VWOs. We will continue to adjust our funding to VWOs on a yearly basis to take into account inflation, rising costs, etc. We also take into account the need for wage increases. But in terms of whether the wage structure is consistent with other professionals that Ms Braema has mentioned - be it teachers or nurses - this is best left for NCSS to study further, because we have to evolve as we go along. So, rather than looking at remuneration, I would prefer that we look at the other parts of the building block first, whereby we have a system that they can go through in order to receive the training in the core competencies. Thereafter we can set out to determine the appropriate salary level.

Key issues concerning social workers such as attrition and burn-out rate have to be addressed. Like all paid personnel, they are basically still professionals who are working, who have a life of their own, families to look after during weekends, etc. So this is something which we have to work with the VWOs to look at how they can plan the workload and use some of the worklife initiatives that we have introduced to make sure that the workload is more evenly spread. I agree with Ms Braema that we cannot predict accurately the workload. But, to a large extent, if there is a human resource programme in place at the VWO, that would actually be very helpful, in terms of how they can adjust the workload. These are the things that we are discussing with the VWOs.

So, let us look at the overall system that we are trying to put in place. We have increased funding to VWOs. We have set up a VCF fund so that they can use that money for training, research and even scholarships. We are now looking into how we can identify the core competencies needed for various professionals. Do we need a training institute to ensure that social workers undergo some training while they are even on the job? That is being studied at this point in time. Once we have that, something comprehensive, then we have to look at what is the right and appropriate salary scale for the social worker professional, primarily because, as Members know, the area of social work is diverse - from FSCs to eldercare, to counselling, violence, abuse, etc. There is a variety, in terms of the work that they do. At the end of the day, it is about dealing with people. But we must also understand that running a student-care outfit is slightly different from that of an FSC or dealing with eldercare. So we have to sort that out first. This is something that will have to evolve. As I said earlier, we are looking into a master plan for social workers in terms of their career development, training needs, etc. When that is out, I will be most happy to discuss this with Ms Braema, and have a discussion on what are the things that we really need to understand better.

Ms Braema suggested some changes to the funding and felt that the 50-50 ratio restricts the ability of the VWOs to pay the social workers. I am not quite sure that I agree with her on that point. For the 50-50 funding ratio, there is a certain philosophy of co-sharing that we want to encourage. What we are trying to do now is to put a system in place called the Programme Evaluation System (PES). This would allow VWOs to be more efficient and, hopefully, with greater efficiency, they will have greater savings. The 50% funding is basically decided on every year based on how much they need. If they work smarter or more efficiently, there will be a lot more savings, and they can use that money to pay bonuses and salaries. So far, what we have seen is that the 50-50 basis has worked quite well. I am not prepared at this point in time to promise that we will change it. Let us look at other parts of the system where we can try and improve so that at the end of the day we can at least address some of the problems that Ms Braema has mentioned.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, I think I have addressed most of the concerns, and I would like to thank Ms Braema again for raising some of those points. As I said earlier, I cannot address all the issues, but I promise the hon. Member that we will certainly look into her suggestions.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Order. The time allowed for the debate has expired.

The Question having been proposed at Eight o'clock pm and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mdm Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned accordingly at Half past Eight o'clock pm.