Further Roll-out of Mental Health Support Teams in Schools

The following question stood in the name of Ms Mariam Jaafar –

1 To ask the Minister for Health what are the plans for the further roll-out of mental health support teams in school, including independent schools.

Mr Yip Hon Weng (Yio Chu Kang): Question No 1, please.

The Senior Minister of State for Health (Dr Janil Puthucheary) (for the Minister for Health): Sir, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has developed various mental health services catering to youths. In schools, the Response, Early Intervention and Assessment in Community Mental Health (REACH) collaborates closely with the school and family to provide mental health interventions, such as depression, anger and anxiety management, coping skills and social skills group programmes to students with mental health needs. MOH will continue to work with the hospitals to ensure there are adequate resourcing for the REACH teams to cope with the needs from schools.

In the community, we have set up services including the Youth Community Outreach Teams (CREST-Youth), Youth Integrated Teams (YITs) and Community Health Assessment Team (CHAT) that reach out and engage with at-risk youths. These services work closely with the schools and Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) to provide mental health screening and assessments, emotional support and psychosocial interventions and link youths to the appropriate resources and other services for further support.