Efforts and Manpower Required to Disseminate Grow Well SG Recommendations and Guidance on Screen Use in Children

4 Ms He Ting Ru asked the Minister for Health in relation to the Grow Well SG personalised health plan initiative for children (a) how many hours of contact time will each child or family expect to receive on a yearly basis to discuss and develop the plan; (b) what sort of personnel will be involved in developing the plans; and (c) what will be the anticipated additional manpower requirements to meaningfully roll-out the initiative through schools, broken down into the types of professions involved.

5 Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Minister for Health (a) what measures is the Ministry taking to disseminate information on Grow Well SG and the Guidance on Screen Use in Children effectively to parents and caregivers; (b) how does the Ministry plan to support parents in overcoming challenges related to the implementation of these guidelines; and (c) how does the Ministry monitor the effectiveness of the Guidance on Screen Use in Children given the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

The Minister for Health (Mr Ong Ye Kung): Mr Speaker, may I have your permission to answer Question Nos 4 and 5 together as they both touch on Grow Well SG please?

Mr Speaker: Please go ahead.

Mr Ong Ye Kung: Besides leveraging mass media, the health guidelines including screen time for children, will be conveyed to parents via the annual health screening programme in mainstream schools to prepare children's health plans. Information is also available through Ministry of Education's (MOE's) Parents Gateway.

The annual screening starts with parents of Primary 1 to 3 students pre-filling a Lifestyle Questionnaire to reflect on their child's current lifestyle habits. During the school health screening, trained nurses and lifestyle coaches from the Health Promotion Board (HPB) will engage each student individually, review responses from the Lifestyle Questionnaire and offer suggestions to adopt a healthier lifestyle.

Ms He asked specifically about time duration. The entire process of screening and consultation for each child may take about 30 minutes. As to how much time a child or family will spend each year to discuss about health plan, it really depends. Three Ministries have worked together to strengthen the preventive care support for children under Grow Well SG, but it will be up to families to make full use of Grow Well SG.

I believe most parents want to be actively involved in building the health of their children. We will encourage parents to review their children's Health Plan, utilise the starter kit and resources on Parent Hub and Healthy 365, have discussions with their children and commit to adopt healthy habits.

Many parents may face challenges in meeting the updated guidelines on screen use. I got many queries during Chinese New Year. There are tips and best practices available on platforms, such as Parent Hub website and Digital for Life portal, as well as through Families for Life parenting programmes. Parents are also in various support groups. I hope they leverage these groups to share practices and provide support to each other. Compare less about how much tuition they have for their children, compare more about parenting tips and how to wean their children off excessive device time.

I believe the lifelong impact of healthy habits from young is more profound than the academic benefits of enrichment classes and tuition. As the implementation of the Health Plan largely taps on MOE and HPB's existing processes, we are not deploying additional manpower. That said, it changes the way they do things, with a stronger focus on preventive care for children, and involving parents to develop and follow up on health plans.

Mr Yip Hon Weng asked about monitoring results. The annual Lifestyle Questionnaire provided to parents as part of the Health Plans, will contain self-reported data on lifestyle habits of their children. Through the results, we will see if Grow Well SG is gradually shifting the health habits, including screen time, of our young.

It takes a village to raise a child. Building healthy habits in our children is a long-term and whole-of-society endeavour. Under Grow Well SG, the Ministry of Health (MOH) provides updated health advisories and timely resources; our schools provide the most appropriate platform to educate children and parents about health habits; HPB supports the schools in developing health plans for children; its Healthy 365 app offers healthy lifestyle programmes for children, which are good alternatives to screen time, and Parenting for Wellness toolbox by MOE, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) and HPB includes resources on topics, such as managing screen use. All these are important resources in support for parents, who know they are the ultimate educator and guardian for their children.

Mr Speaker: Ms He Ting Ru.

Ms He Ting Ru (Sengkang): Thank you, Mr Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for the reply. I just have one further supplementary question for the Minister. The Minister mentioned in his reply that trained nurses and lifestyle coaches will primarily be the ones carrying out the interaction and implementation of the personalised plan for children. I believe the Minister also further mentioned that they will not be recruiting any new personnel in order to carry this out.

My question is, given that lifestyle coaches and nurses are in the traditional areas where there might be a bit of a manpower crunch or where personnel and staff members could be under quite heavy workload, I would just like to know whether the Minister can share further details of how they plan to add to the workload, if I can use this phrase, or how to make sure that the personnel who would be taking on these additional roles will not be unduly stressed by the additional workload in carrying out this new plan.

Mr Ong Ye Kung: HPB has about a hundred dedicated staff, mostly trained nurses and lifestyle coaches, who are dedicated to engaging the schools and they have been doing so for some years. So, it is a dedicated piece of work. They work very hard, but I think with Grow Well SG, there is a shift in orientation, and also, to build in a system of developing health plans for children. So, the activities do not change.

For years they have been going down to school doing health screening, talking to the kids about lifestyle habits, but now, we deliberately develop a Health Plan for children with clearer guidelines, especially on screen time and then through the school, engage the parents.

So, it very much involves a change in the way we do things and make it more systemised and hopefully more effective. As to whether it adds more work, more stress, maybe it does to some extent, but I think the staff actually are very motivated and very excited by this. They see this as a potential breakthrough and I think if there is more work, they are quite willing to work harder for this, because the outcome and the meaning is now deeper.

Mr Speaker: Mr Yip Hon Weng.

Mr Yip Hon Weng (Yio Chu Kang): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for his response. My supplementary questions pertain to the guidance on screen use in children. It provides comprehensive recommendations and I thank the Minister for sharing that there are various platforms available to share resources with parents.

The first supplementary question is what tailored support systems are in place to assist parents from diverse backgrounds in overcoming some of the challenges in following these guidelines. And number two, given the rapidly evolving digital landscape, how does the Ministry ensure that the guidance and the guidelines remain relevant?

Mr Ong Ye Kung: The second question first. We will continue to monitor the evidence. I think there are local studies and international studies on the impact of life habits on children. As and when we see new findings, we will update the guidelines from time to time. But essentially, we are taking an evidence-based approach to Grow Well SG.

As for tailored support systems, indeed, I think there needs to be more support for parents. I do know there is a range of practices on the ground in every home. There are children; while these are guidelines; children who exceed or do not exceed the guidelines, there is a range of impact on them. So, it is a very diverse space.

But I think, as agencies with all the expertise in education and in clinical science, we have a duty when we know something is happening, because of digitalisation of childhood and we see the evidence, I think we have a duty to put out the information and recommend guidelines to parents and to schools, so that we can bring up our children better.

I was saying over Chinese New Year, I met so many parents with so many children and when they see me, they will tell their children, "This is the uncle who prevents you from using screen time. Go and talk to him." So, I get an earful of that!

Many parents are indeed struggling a bit. They know they need to wean the kid off, especially during meal times; they wonder how.

So, we will discuss with MSF. There are online resources. I think we need to improve them. MOH, MOE and MSF will continue to discuss this. This is a policy platform. We launched this, but this is not the end. I think this is the start. From here, we do need to develop this further, including the online resources. So, what Mr Yip Hon Weng has asked for, I think this is something we will have to work on. Ultimately, parents need practical step-by-step guidelines for them to improve their parenting skills.