last line of defence

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The Electric New Paper :

From files of family service centre counsellors

'We are the last line of defence'

From this April, the 36 family service centres here will get a $16m boost from the Government - $3m up from last year - for hiring and training of staff. The New Paper spends a day at the Tanjong Pagar FSC - to understand how one of the key pillars of Singapore's social security system works

HER tear-streaked face was creased with worry, as she poured her problems out to a stranger.
By Genevieve Jiang
03 March 2009

HER tear-streaked face was creased with worry, as she poured her problems out to a stranger.

Grabbing the hand of Mr Xin Li, a counsellor from the Tanjong Pagar Family Service Centre (FSC), the 76-year-old woman claimed her son was abusing her.

Her son, in his 50s, married a foreign woman without her knowledge a few months ago.

The disagreement led to constant arguments and her son hit her, she alleged. She called the police, who then referred the case to the FSC.

It is 3pm at the void deck of a block of flats on Telok Blangah Crescent, a typical afternoon for Mr Xin.

The woman is one of about 40 cases the counsellor has on his plate at any one time, and the meeting is one of two home visits he has scheduled for the day.

Mr Xin usually takes the bus for home visits to cut costs. He said: 'We take taxis only in cases of emergency. Most of us do not drive.

'If clients see that we drive, it creates an instant gap between us and them and it makes it hard for them to relate to us.'
The woman wasn't home when he went to her one-room flat 10 days ago.

This time, he decided to wait for her nearby and managed to meet her by chance.

Said Mr Xin, in his 40s: 'Often, we have to play detective to find out what is truly happening. Sometimes, what appears to be a simple case may turn out to be a lot more complicated as we find out more.

'In this case, the next step is to meet the family members to see how best we can help them.'

Although Mr Xin is an art therapist by training, he has to handle a variety of cases ranging from abuse to troubled teens, on top of providing art therapy to the mentally-disabled at the Thye Hua Kwan Moral Home for the Disabled every week.

Occasionally, he also has to conduct marriage preparation workshops. He said: 'We all have to multi-task. There are just too many cases to handle.'

Mr Xin is among 23 staff members - including social workers, counsellors and psychologists - at Tanjong Pagar FSC, who help more than 1,300 troubled families every year.

Each staff member takes care of 35 to 40 cases or more in addition to various programmes such as help for problem gamblers and unwed pregnant teens.

For social workers handling low-income families, case loads can go up to 65 at any one time.

Often, working hours stretch beyond the usual 9am to 6pm. Although the FSC's deputy director, Mr Udhia Kumar, 39, was rostered to work the afternoon shift on Tuesday from noon to 9pm, he was in the office by 9am.

He had scheduled a meeting with a client that morning at a crisis centre for abused and homeless women. The case involved an elderly woman who had left home over a series of family problems.

Said Mr Kumar: 'The day this woman left home, I was due to catch a flight to India with my family and had to be at the airport by 7pm.

'But all day, I was calling several shelters to find her a place to stay and managed to get her settled only after 5pm. It was a mad rush but such is the nature of the job.'

Back at the centre, Mr Kumar's colleagues were waiting for him to attend a case conference - which is held when a case that cannot be resolved by a social worker is discussed among the staff.

It was a packed day for Mr Kumar, who had to leave after the conference for a training session and then return for three back-to-back counselling sessions with clients in the evening.

But such a work pattern is common, said the FSC's executive director Mr Wong Kwong Sing, 53.

Said Mr Wong: 'I want to hire more staff to spread out the work, but there's just no space. We don't have any more work stations for new staff.'

The FSC runs various programmes, including providing affordable childcare to low-income families, a child adoption service and free legal services to those who cannot afford it.

Said Mr Wong: 'FSC social workers work the hardest. Often, we are the last line of defence.

'We are referred cases by the police, schools, hospitals and other agencies when these families are found to have a whole gamut of problems.'

Staff leaving
At 5pm, the centre is quiet. Half the staff are out for meetings, and there are no walk-in clients, which is uncommon. The centre usually sees about five walk-in cases a day.

Assistant senior social worker Subha Rajaiya, 32, was among those who were in the office clearing paper work.

There is much to be done as she will be leaving for a social work position in Australia next month after more than five years at the FSC. The centre has lost two other social workers in the past three months.

Miss Subha says she's leaving because of pull factors, not push. But she acknowledged that burnout and pay is a reason many people leave the job.

She recalled a case last year of a woman who had been physically abused by her husband for more than three years and yet refused to leave him.

When Miss Subha accompanied the woman to a shelter, the woman said she had been there before.

Miss Subha even had to spend the night at the shelter with the woman because she was too afraid to stay there on her own.

She said: 'It wasn't the first time she had been beaten so badly that she had to seek help at a crisis shelter. Yet, she allowed the abuse to continue.

'As a social worker, it's hard not to feel helpless and frustrated that some cases are unable to break the cycle of violence or poverty.'

Mr Wong said FSC social workers earn the least compared to their counterparts in schools, hospitals, community development councils and the public sector.

A new social worker's starting pay at an FSC is about $2,000, whereas those in the public sector can earn up to $2,700.

Those who continue to stay in the job do so for the love of helping others.

Counsellor Merlissa Yeo, 30, had made a career switch from marketing communications three years ago.

She said: 'I can't think of doing anything else. It's a good feeling being of use to people. There is a purpose, if not for yourself, then for someone else.'

At 7pm, a group of children, accompanied by their parents, arrived at the FSC for free tuition, provided by volunteers.

A 38-year-old woman waited while her daughter and son attended class for the next two hours. She prefers to wait instead of going home - a 10-minute bus ride away - so that she can save on transport.

The woman, who has four children aged 7 to 18, has been receiving help from the FSC for so many years, she cannot remember the number of social workers her case has been passed on to.

Her husband has a drinking problem, and was recently retrenched. The FSC has been helping her with food rations and financial help for her children.

She said: 'Whenever I'm low, there is someone here to listen to my problems.

'I can survive up to now because people here listen, they don't judge me.'

Cases with mental health issues up

THE number of people seeking financial help at the Tanjong Pagar Family Service Centre has gone up by almost 80 per cent.

There were 1,369 walk-in cases at the FSC last year.

Of these, there were 238 cases seeking financial help in the second half of the year, up from 133 in the first half
.
In January this year, 57 out of the 131 cases were involved financial difficulties, said the FSC's executive director, Mr Wong Kwong Sing.

'We are also seeing an increase in the number of people facing mental health issues like depression and anxiety,' said Mr Wong.

There were 31 people with mental health problems in the second half of last year, up from 12 in the first half. In January this year alone, there were seven cases.

It costs $1.4million every year to run the FSC, said Mr Wong.