S. Vasoo

Organization and delivery of long-term care in Singapore: present issues and future challenges.

Summary This paper focuses on the Singaporean model of long-term care for older people. With only about 2% of the older population living in institutions, the mainstay of long-term care is community care. The reader is provided an overview of the Singaporean services, including case management, followed by a discussion of the current issues and future challenges. In keeping with the prospect of a rapidly aging population profile, the Singapore government plays a leading role in framing policy and planning for future needs of this sector of the population.

Community programmes and services for long‐term care of the elderly in Singapore: Challenges for policy‐makers

H ealth policy-makers are often confronted by the future burden of increasing public expenditure and cost in the care of the elderly who require long-term continual care. Hence, there will be increasing social and political pressure to review present service delivery systems in the care of the elderly and implement more innovative policies to promote community-based, non-institutionalised services for the families to care for their elderly as long as it is possible. Cost-effective measures in service provision have to be organised. Policy-makers in ageing societies cannot escape these issues as the elderly will form a sizeable proportion of voters and politics of accommodation will come to play in meeting the needs of such a large interest group. Therefore, a tripartite partnership of the state, community and family in the delivery of community-based services will be more useful and acceptable. Such a development can be a strategy to meet the needs of the elderly but, it is not a panacea to solving the problems of their long-term care. In Singapore, this significant demographic transition will have serious implications on the provision of social services for the elderly. It is estimated that about 5% of the elderly population will require long-term institutional care. However, this provision will not be an effective solution in the longer term as the number of elderly requiring care and assistance in their daily living will be increasing and the building of more nursing homes and related facilities will not be a realistic solution to cope with the demands which cannot be curtailed. It is, therefore, important for policy-makers and service providers to think of other innovative services to help the elderly to remain healthy as long as possible, and remain socially integrated into the family and community. The dilemma that many policy-makers face is the pressing demand for setting up more and more institutional care programmes, and how such a demand could be mediated and met in the most cost-effective way. Inevitably, one cannot avoid the debate of finding more cost-effective ways to deliver programmes to address the long-

Community development in Singapore: New directions and challenges

Community Development in Singapore: New Directions and Challenges

The social work profession in response to challeging times: the case of Singapore

The social work profession in Singapore should brace itself in facing challenging times ahead. These challenges are precipitated by changing demographic profiles which to some extent remain unpredictable. At the same time, the expectations and demands of various people are changing. Since independence in 1965, Singapore has undergone significant economic and social transformation. The social and economic landscape of the island city state has changed progressively under the People’s Action Party (PAP) government since 1959. Better housing, security, health, education, environment and employment opportunities have been achieved because of good political leadership with responsible and honest people in government. This has been a precursor to and the backbone of the economic and social progress which Singapore has been able to make. Without this type of forthright and talented leadership in the policy-making machinery, no society – not even Singapore – will be able to move ahead in its social and economic redevelopment. In the context of such developments, the social work profession has to be aware of the trends in social changes confronting Singapore. In order that social workers can continue to play an effective role, it is important for them to become more aware of internal and external factors which affect the efficiency and effectiveness of the social services and the community organizations in which they are involved. The identification of a number of factors such as manpower, facilities, funding resources, leadership and other related organizational issues, and the manner in which these areas are managed, will determined whether the profession will make meaningful contributions. The social work curriculum has, over the years, mainly concentrated on efforts to enhance interpersonal practice skills which are rather client-centred in their perspective. Such a training emphasis, though relevant in preparing social workers to acquire good helping skills, appears to be inadequate in equipping social workers with the competence to deal with the clients’ environment, in particular the human service delivery systems. As a consequence, social workers are perceived by resource holders to be more suited for front-line and middle-management responsibilities in social services. They are assigned to these levels of management because of their interpersonal practice competence. The confinement to these areas of responsibilities narrows the opportunities of social workers to influence decisions which have an impact on policies related to the management of

Issues and Challenges in Urban Youth Work

Urban youth work in Asia faces tremendous challenges in trying to meet the needs of youths and enable them to cope more effectively with issues related to modernization. Some of the more common issues such as rural to urban migration, youth unemployment and underemployment, drug abuse and juvenile delinquency, sexual exploitation and erosion of moral values have to be addressed quickly and realistic long-term solutions found. Youth workers and youth organizations have to examine their organizational mission and discover more effective and efficient ways to deliver youth services. More importantly, youth organizations in urban settings have to move away from mainly a centre-based approach in service delivery to a more outreach emphasis. In doing so, urban youth work will be more dynamic and responsive to meet the needs of youths.

Report on Curriculum Review by the National University of Singapore

The curriculum of the Social Work programme of the National University of Singapore was recently reviewed. The overview of the programme together with course descriptions are given in the report.