Family Service Centres with Dedicated Headcount for Community Work

6 Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) how many Family Service Centres (FSCs) currently have a headcount dedicated for community work; and (b) whether the Ministry can provide more funding to FSCs to hire additional headcount dedicated for such work.

The Minister of State for Social and Family Development (Ms Sun Xueling) (for the Minister for Social and Family Development): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) had replied to Mr Louis Ng in a similar Parliamentary Question (PQ) on 5 October 2021, sharing how MSF resources Family Service Centres (FSCs) to carry out case work, group work and community work. Our position has not changed and Mr Louis Ng may wish to refer to our earlier reply.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Mr Ng.

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang (Nee Soon): Thank you, Sir. I thank the Minister of State for the reply, but actually it is a different question. I am asking what is the average number of social workers in FSCs who are focused on community work? I ask this because they have provided feedback to me that FSCs and social workers really do want to focus on that, to go upstream, to solve and address some of the problems they are seeing downstream.

And the problem now is the lack of funding. I think MSF only provides funding for one headcount per FSC who handles a very large area. So, could I ask whether MSF can look into this further and study how we can help FSCs social workers do more community work?

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member for his supplementary question. I think for the benefit of everyone who is in Parliament, I would like to share and clarify that MSF provides funding to the FSCs for casework, group work and community work.

The Member is specifically asking about community work. Now, what is community work? It refers to a method of social work intervention when the community setting is utilised to enhance individual and family social network support connections as well as to build capacity in local communities to respond to the needs of individuals and families. Right now, MSF funds the FSCs based on the actual number of cases managed, so MSF funds casework funding. So, it is not just one headcount that the Member has mentioned. The MSF funds two fixed headcount to carry out group work and community work and five other fixed headcounts for administrative and corporate functions.

As to how the FSC wants to internally allocate work and the funding within the FSC, that is not something that MSF intervenes in, and it may change from FSC to FSC.

But I would just like to assure the Member that we are fully supportive of what the FSCs are doing for individuals, families and the community, and our funding approach takes into account, as I mentioned, casework, group work and community work.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Mr Louis Ng, a short supplementary question please.

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang: I understand all that and I agree with the Minister of State that we are doing quite a number of things for FSCs. But the short question really is can MSF just look into this and find out how many social workers are focusing on community work in FSCs? And then at least we can see the results of that and change our policies.

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member for his supplementary question. I think there is no doubt that we want to help and assist and support our FSCs as much as possible.

His question has been phrased with regard to community work but community work cannot exist in silo. We are working with individuals and families at the end of the day, and it depends on what level of interventions are needed. And that is why I have taken some care to share that our support for FSC spans casework, group work and community work. We have different funding principles for the three categories. But depending on what the FSC sees as the needs in the community, the FSC may determine within themselves how to allocate work between the different functions and also to allocate the funding within the FSC.