A new assessment tool is now available to welfare agencies to help them
evaluate the needs of low-income families in Singapore.
If adopted across the board, the
tool will allow the agencies to be on the same page when they make their
assessments. Currently, welfare agencies use a variety of measures to assess
the people they try to help, including interviews and checklists.
The tool is designed in the form
of an Internet-based "scorecard" that captures information from a
customised questionnaire of between 50 and 80 questions.
The scorecard identifies areas in
which each family needs help - such as marital problems and career progression.
To chart their progress, a 12-month action plan is included as part of the
tool.
A pilot initiative to use this new
tool with 20 low-income families is now under way at the PPIS Family Service
Centre (East) on Chai Chee Street.
It was developed by international
advisory firm Vector Scorecard, and the Singapore Muslim Women's Association,
also known as PPIS.
Vector Scorecard's chief
executive M. Nazri said the firm is in discussions with various community
development councils and voluntary welfare organisations to adopt the tool. The
scorecard was developed as part of the PPIS's Family Economic Sustainability
Programme launched by Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam in June this
year.
Under the programme, PPIS case
workers will develop strategies over five years to ensure that lower-income
families make progress in attaining their economic aspirations.
Social workers say that if a
standardised tool is used, they will be better able to advise their clients on
how to improve their financial lives.
Said PPIS centre manager Amran
Jamil: "With the scorecard and action plan, the clients need not repeat
the background of their cases again when they are referred elsewhere, and the
progress of the cases can be better tracked."
Mr Amran is one of eight social
workers who underwent a training session on using the assessment tool earlier
this month.
In Parliament earlier this year,
Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports Halimah Yacob
highlighted the need for a more holistic approach when help is rendered to the
same client by multiple agencies.
"Those who need help should
not have to repeat the same stories to different agencies, nor fill up the same
information in different forms. We need to synchronise and aim towards a
no-wrong-door policy," she said in March.
Rachel Lee, assistant director of
the Fei Yue Family Service Centres, said a uniform tool will help as the
problems those families face are often multi-faceted and social workers may
overlook certain areas in the interviews they conduct.
One of the trainers, Wayne
Abdullah, 37, said: "We need to explore the deep-seated factors that prevent
the poor from moving up; the plan shows them the steps they have to take."
Mrs Poh Siew Leng, 46, a
part-time administrator who receives a S$200 (US$159) monthly stipend, said
such a tool would help improve the prospects of her two school-going children.
"I worry for my children,
whether they will be able to live a better life than what I can provide for
them," she said. "Purely working hard may not help as there are other
factors like the lack of family support that may hold them back, so hopefully
this tool will help us address the longer-term issues."
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