SPEECH BY MR MASAGOS ZULKIFLI, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL AND FAMILY DEVELOPMENT AND SECOND MINISTER FOR HEALTH AT THE LAUNCH OF FAMILY NEXUS @OUR TAMPINES HUB ON 14 JUNE 2024 (FRIDAY), 10AM AT OUR TAMPINES HUB

Mr. Cheng Wai Keung, Chairman, SingHealth

Prof Ng Wai Hoe, Group CEO, SingHealth

Prof Lee Chien Earn, Deputy Group CEO, SingHealth

Mr Ishak Ismail, Chairman, Families for Life Council

Mr Baey Yam Keng,

Asst Prof Charlene Chen,

Advisers to Tampines Grassroots Organisations

Ladies and gentlemen

1. Good morning. It is my pleasure to join you this morning for the launch of Family Nexus@Our Tampines Hub.  I am glad to see many familiar faces from both my Ministry of Social and Family Development and Ministry of Health (MOH) portfolios - SingHealth, Families for Life Council, healthcare partners and social service agencies, to name a few. There are also many families among us today.

Commitment to strengthen support for families

2. We are in the midst of National Family Festival, where activities are lined up across Singapore for families to enjoy and spend quality time together, including right here at Our Tampines Hub.

3. Over the past three weeks, families have been enjoying themselves at the National Family Festival, from the events at the carnival at Singapore Expo to events held in the community, and even at home with the NFF special edition craft kits. Thanks to the efforts of the Family for Life Council and its many community and corporate partners. 

4. The expansion of the National Family Festival into a month-long event demonstrates the value we place on families. Indeed, strong families are the foundation of a strong society. Families are where values are shaped and habits are nurtured from a young age. This is why over the years, we have been foregrounding the role of the family and strengthening support for families across different chapters of life, through the Singapore Made for Families vision.

Child and Maternal Health and Well-being Strategy and Action Plan 

5. Just like access to education and gainful employment and shelter, health is fundamental to the well-being of a family. We want to help families to live happy and healthy lives. To enable this, we need a strong scaffold for children and their families at every stage of life, so that children have a good start in leading healthier lives from young and can maximise their potential. 

6. We also recognise that we can better serve when agencies collaborate and work together in a concerted manner. The Child and Maternal Health and Well-being (CAMH) Strategy is one such instance where more than 20 agencies worked hand-in-hand towards the aim of happy and healthy families.

7. We set up the inter-agency Taskforce, to develop the Strategy for Singapore three years ago. The Taskforce’s efforts culminated in 9 recommendations and a five-year Action Plan of 48 initiatives, which we have been implementing progressively.

8. I’m pleased to share that to date, we have implemented more than half of the 48 initiatives and already seeing early positive outcomes. 

9. We are enhancing support for families and treating them as a unit when designing care services. Rather than receiving discrete services at different touchpoints, we are integrating support. Under the mother-child dyad service delivery model, both mothers and children can access healthcare services in the same visit to the polyclinic. For instance, while the child is scheduled for his routine vaccinations, the mum too can receive lactation support services and be screened for post-natal depression, to ensure that both mum and child are well. We have heard positive feedback from early implementation, and I’m glad to share that this service is now available in 19 polyclinics across Singapore, ahead of our initial target of 14 polyclinics by 2025. 

10. We have also put the best minds together and launched evidence-based guidelines in 6 areas to enhance maternal health and support all of society in nurturing children in the early years. While the areas can seem ordinary such as eating, exercising, and the use of screens, what a child observes and practices from 0 to 6 years in her home and school environment has a profound impact on the child’s well-being and health for the rest of her life. I’m glad that parents, caregivers, and educators working with young children have found these guidelines to be helpful. I would like to recognise KKH, NUH, the College of Paediatrics and Child Health Singapore for working closely with the Government to develop these guidelines and these guidelines can be found on Parent Hub.

11. These are but a few initiatives from the CAMH Action Plan. More details on the suite of initiatives that are being rolled out in the community, can be found in the Taskforce Report, which will be made publicly available on MOH’s website from today.

12. I would like to thank the Taskforce and workgroup members who have worked on this CAMH Strategy and Action Plan and the many more who are working to implement these initiatives. Together, with your continuous dedication and commitment, we can make strides to support children and their families to live happier and healthier lives.

Family Nexus – Family-centric Service Delivery

13. Ladies and gentlemen, today, we gather together to witness the launch of the latest development under our CAMH Action Plan – the launch of Family Nexus@Our Tampines Hub. I would like to thank SingHealth and all the partners for their hard work to make today’s launch possible.

14. Family Nexus is a significant partnership between our healthcare clusters and Families for Life Council to deliver services in more family-centric manner. Typically, families have to go to different venues to access discrete services. With Family Nexus, families can visit the same location for a range of health, marriage and parenting services, even if they are offered by different partners, close to their homes. It is only through such coordinated planning and strong partnership between agencies that this is made possible. 

15. The launch of Family Nexus@OTH to serve residents living in the East comes closely after our first Family Nexus launch at Punggol Polyclinic.

16. Family Nexus@OTH has two distinct features: 

a. First, it is located within the community at a central node where families gather for daily activities such as dining, shopping, and sports. This means families have more convenient access to such services. It also enables FamNex@OTH to collaborate easily with other partners located in the vicinity to develop more offerings. For example, Family Nexus works with the National Library Board to co-organise talks and activities for families at the library within OTH and partners People’s Association to reach out to families during the National Family Festival at OTH.

b. Second, it is the first Family Nexus to have co-location of partners onsite. As SingHealth community nurses and coordinators are sited together with Care Corner, they are able to work as a team to adapt interventions to better support the needs of families, be it health services or marriage or parenting programmes, or both. 

17. Let me share how this arrangement has benefitted Mr. A and his family. Mr. A and his wife were concerned about their four-year-old son’s development and were facing some challenges, especially managing his hyperactive behaviors. Community nurses from SingHealth conducted checks to see if there were any areas of concern through child developmental screenings. The team further identified caregiver stress experienced by the couple, which appeared to stem from possible differences in parenting styles and advised them to sign up for Care Corner’s parenting workshops. The team also encouraged the couple to bring their son out for physical activities and reduce his screen time where possible. Through this collaboration between SingHealth, Care Corner and their partners, Mr. A and his family were able to receive timely support.

18. As Family Nexus is rolled out across Singapore, more families will benefit from these one-stop services. This includes the Family Nexus at Sembawang Polyclinic at Bukit Canberra and Choa Chu Kang Polyclinic which also has a satellite presence at the Keat Hong ServiceSG office.

Conclusion

19. Once again, I would like to congratulate SingHealth on the launch of FamNex@OTH. I thank SingHealth, Families for Life Council, Care Corner and all our partners who have contributed to this milestone.

20. The CAMH Taskforce had a vision for Singapore where we value and invest in the health and well-being of our children and their families. We have seen early signs of success from the initiatives that have been rolled out. Let's continue to work together to enable families to lead happy and healthier lives and to support every child in living to their fullest potential, with health and well-being.