In the 1960s, when Singapore had just gained independence, the government focused on building up the three basic necessities, namely education, housing and healthcare, and left the management of social services to independent voluntary welfare organisations [VWOs]. The government provided a small amount of funding to the VWOs, and took charge of juvenile and rehabilitation services for criminal offenders. As Singapore progressed further, the government started becoming more involved with the social service sector. However, the government did not wish to turn Singapore into a welfare state, and create a mindset that the disadvantaged would have to rely on the government for support. Thus in the 1990s, the government declared the Many Helping Hands approach as a philosophy with which the community services sector in Singapore would adopt. The aim was to create “a compassionate society” to help people in the community “who cannot keep pace with the rest of the population”, and which would not impinge on Singapore’s economic progress (Mehta & Wee, 2004).
The primary objective of the many helping hands approach, as stated earlier, is to provide care and support to a small segment in our society who, on their own, is unable to cope with the pace within the community. This group is generally from “low income families who have chronic physical, social, psychological, or economic difficulties” (Mehta & Wee, 2004). This approach requires the participation of all sectors of society such as family, community and non-profit organisations which refers to Community Development Councils [CDCs ], VWOs, Grassroots organisations [GROs], profit-making organisations such as private corporations and finally Government such as Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports [MCYS]. The first line of help would involve the family as they are the ones who would be in a position to identify when help is needed and will most likely be the primary caregivers. Community and non-profit organisations provide services which forms the next level of support. Private organisations contribute funding to non-profit organisations through corporate social responsibility (Ang, 1998). Finally, the government provides funding to various VWOs through MCYS, National Council of Social Service [NCSS] and to the needy through the recently set up ComCare fund (Yu-Foo, 2009).
This policy would allow the community to take charge and be responsible for those who require assistance within their own community thereby fostering stronger bonds within the community. This policy was designed to be adaptable so that social service agencies, equipped with the knowledge and expertise, would be able to specialise in reaching out to help a particular community by customising programmes and services to suit disadvantaged individuals with little worry of restrictions (Ang, 1998). The objectives of the Many Helping Hands approach, in my opinion, are ideologically beneficial, however the implementation of this policy is a different story, as there are two main issues that need to be resolved.
The first issue of this policy is that it requires extensive coordination and cooperation amongst the social service agencies involved. However, at the present state, the community service organisations have not been able to meet this standard. This can be seen from the lack of database sharing or a common database of client information among the social service agencies. Without the sharing of client information, it becomes difficult to secure critical information on clients quickly. As a result certain clients might get away with securing additional financial aids from numerous organisations. This is indeed unfair to those who abide by the rules, and it also utilizes valuable funding that could be used to help other clients in need of financial aid. (Yacob as cited in Lee, 2009).
The lack of coordination between the social service agencies is also evident from clients being turned away when they approach the wrong agency for help. These clients may be at the end of their rope, not knowing where to turn to for help, and instead of receiving assistance in being transferred to the appropriate organisation, they are told that they have come to the “wrong door” and are turned away (Lee, 2009). Such incidents only serve to show that the community service sector may not be ready for the amount of cooperation and coordination required for the Many Helping Hands approach to be effective.
The second issue is that the Many Helping Hands approach does not have a reporting structure between governmental agencies, like NCSS and MCYS, and the VWOs. This could cause a lot of confusion when important and controversial decisions need to be made, such as in the case of which organisation has jurisdiction over which matter, especially if the client requires help from multiple organisations due to multi-faceted issues. The Association for Women Research and Education [AWARE] saga is another example of issues that could arise from not having a hierarchy. In this case, some of the newly elected executive committee members brought in values from their Anglican church – disapproval of homosexuality. Members of AWARE became divided and engaged in countless altercations about which values would lead the organisation in the right direction (Loh, 2009). Although the Minister for Community, Youth and Sports, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan advised against bringing their religious values into the organisation, however the government could not directly interfere in the matter as AWARE does not report directly to MCYS or NCSS (Othman, 2009). Thus the lack of regulation from the Many Helping Hands approach may result in confusion and discord, and ultimately the clients are the ones who suffer.
Is the “Many Helping Hands” of Singapore’s approach to social services effective? Personally, I feel that, at present, the community services sector in Singapore is not yet ready to implement the Many Helping Hands approach, as the two critical issues stated above need to be addressed before this approach would be effective. However, one cannot deny the potential that this approach brings. If the two issues mentioned above could be resolved, which is not an easy feat, this policy can be effective and may provide greater benefits than having a centralized agency coordinate social services. For this to happen, the various organisations will have to collaborate effectively and efficiently with each other, which requires extensive time and effort on the part of the social service agencies, in order for the clients receiving help to benefit from this policy.
Perhaps alternative policies that provide a compromise between the centralization and decentralization approaches should be given a closer look as it might alleviate some issues of the decentralized and centralized approaches and yet provide the benefits of both types of model. One such example would be to have various regional headquarters in charge of coordinating the various agencies in that region, adopting the structure of Multi-National Corporations. In this model, the regional headquarters, with experts from different fields of social services, will be in charge of managing the community service organisations in that region, and report to the main headquarters which would be a governmental body, such as MCYS. However, the various agencies would still be given plenty of freedom in implementing their programmes to serve the needy, albeit with a little more regulation than before – having to get approval from the regional headquarters before implementing the programme. Finally, this model would also allow MCYS to have a clearer understanding of the situation at ground level, and be in a better position to create effective policies at the macro level.
References:
Ang, B. L. (Guest Speaker). (2008, November 17). Transcript of Miss Ang's Presentation [Speech transcript]. The Singapore experience. Retrieved May 8, 2008, from http://www.cpu.gov.hk/english/documents/conference/e-ang.rtf
Lee, S. H. (2009, Feb 12). Helping hands 'should coordinate'. The Straits Times. Retrieved May 8, 2008, from Factiva.
Loh, C. K. (2009, Apr 20). More than a numbers game. TODAY. Retrieved May 8, 2008, from Factiva.
Mehta, K. K., & Wee, A. (Eds.). (2004). Social work in context: A reader. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish.
Othman, Z. (2009, Apr 27). ‘Keep religion above the fray of petty politics’ ; Vivian Balakrishnan warns of the danger of mixing the two. TODAY. Retrieved May 8, 2008, from Factiva.
Yu-Foo, Y. S. (Guest Speaker). (2009, February 11). Strengthening social assistance delivery [Speech transcript]. FY 2009 commitee for supply debate. Singapore: Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports. Retrieved May 8, 2008, from http://www.mcys.gov.sg/MCDSFiles/Speeches/Articles/11-2009.pdf.
