Speeches
SPEECH BY MR ONG YE KUNG, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND COORDINATING MINISTER FOR SOCIAL POLICIES, AT THE 2ND SINGAPORE SYSTEMIC FAMILY THERAPY CONFERENCE, 22 OCTOBER 2026
22 October 2026
Mr Albert Lim, Chairman, Counselling and Care Centre
Associate Professor Sirene Lim, Dean, S R Nathan School of Human Development, Singapore University of Social Sciences
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
1. I am pleased to join you today for the Singapore Systemic Family Therapy Conference, and to commemorate the Counselling and Care Centre’s, or CCC’s, 60th anniversary.
2. Indeed, the issue of family is critically important. I do agree that the family relationships are failing. The concept of family is also weakening, and the institution of family is also undermined. These are important topics, and over the next two days, you will learn from each other and garner insights.
3. In the case of government, various policies are being implemented, including the recent package of measures that were announced. It was positioned as encouraging marriage and procreation. But, I feel what is more long-term and strategic is to actually support the family through more affordable and more accessible infant care, preschool, daycare. I think if we can make that more universal and affordable, it will help the family juggle responsibilities, and in the process strengthen the family.
4. When families can juggle their responsibilities, more time can be spent on nurturing relationships. Very importantly, the second thing that's happening is the Ministry of Digital Development and Information's current initiative to negotiate and discuss with tech companies on imposing or introducing restrictions on adolescents' usage of social media platforms, and I think if we succeed, and I am confident we will, we will be one of the first countries in the world to have done that. That will also rebalance the time spent between nurturing relationships and the time spent on devices. You have two days to discuss families, so I thought I would speak about something else, but still related to the conference and very relevant to CCC, which is mental health.
60 Years of CCC
5. First, let me say something about CCC. Over the last 60 years, CCC has grown from a small church-based service into an established training centre. It has nurtured generations of counselling professionals and supported numerous individuals and families.
6. Many leaders and practitioners have shaped its journey. Among them was the late Mr Anthony Yeo, CCC’s first Asian clinical director, and widely regarded as the “Father of Counselling” in Singapore. His legacy continues to inspire the profession today.
7. CCC’s journey also reflects how the need for counselling services has evolved over the years. When CCC first started, mental health and counselling were probably only occasionally spoken about. Such services are probably now among those most in demand. Today’s conference is dedicated to understanding how families and communities can better support mental well-being. That will be my focus today.
Growing Concern Over Youth Mental Health
8. We just observed World Mental Health Day on 10 October. I shared a video statement this year. This is the first time I have shared a video statement because I want to highlight the seriousness of the problem. Mental health needs are rising globally, and in Singapore. Young people are particularly affected. In Singapore, about one in three young persons aged 10 to 18 reported mental health symptoms such as depression and anxiety. And I think the prevalence rate among adults is rising too, whether we admit it or not. All of us have our own mental health struggles.
9. I spoke about how we will expand clinical capacity to manage the severe cases. But the longer-term solution, similar to how we manage other chronic diseases, lies in prevention and managing the condition early, before it becomes severe. We must intervene earlier to help people stay mentally well, recognise problems early, and support them. And that support cannot be in the hospital and the clinics alone. Predominantly it must be in the community.
10. If we do this well, an individual will not face these pressures alone. They can be supported by the people and environments around them, especially their families, schools, communities, and the institutions that they live and work in.
11. To manage chronic illnesses, we have a system of enrolment with polyclinics and General Practitioner (GP) clinics under Healthier SG, as well as Active Ageing Centres (AACs) and Community Health Posts under Age Well SG, and that is specifically targeted at seniors. These took a few years to build up and we are now making a difference in communities. We need to do likewise for mental health, building up the community support system progressively. At this stage, I would like to outline three immediate priorities.
Build Resilience Earlier
12. Number one, we need to strengthen schools as key places where young people learn to build resilience earlier and cope with mental health challenges.
13. Some social services agencies ask me, "You have AACs, shall we also have youth centres that can reach out to students and young people so that we can support them in their mental health journey?” I said, we have a lot of youth centres and they are called schools. Schools are a major part of a young person’s life besides their families. They are where young people learn and grow, receive and give support, and feel safe to step forth and seek help when they face personal challenges. Our schools are already doing some of this today, including building resilience through the curriculum, supportive relationships and access to school counsellors.
14. We want to build on this through Grow Well SG. We have already rolled out Grow Well SG for preschool and primary school children. The focus has been trying to build up healthy habits amongst the young, namely sleep well, eating well, exercising, managing device usage and bonding well with family and friends.
15. Next year, the Ministry of Health (MOH), the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ministry of Social and Family Development will extend Grow Well SG to Secondary One and Two students. We will start with 20 schools early next year, before expanding to all secondary schools in 2028. Just like in primary school, each secondary school student will develop a personalised health plan together with healthcare professionals. The difference is that we will place a special focus on building resilience.
16. This is because when you transit from primary to secondary school, it is a huge change. It is a significant transition in a young person’s life, when they are entering adolescence, building their identities, becoming more independent, and navigating academic, social and digital pressures in a new environment. Therefore, the Grow Well SG Health Plan for secondary schools will focus on normalising conversations about mental health and raising awareness of the mental health support available. We will share more details when ready.
17. Through this process, we want to assure young people that they can seek support when they need it through schools. We will also involve parents and caregivers, as key partners in helping their children apply these skills in everyday life.
Make Seeking Help Easier
18. Second priority, we will have to make it easier for young people to access mental health support and to make it more accessible.
19. As I have said in my World Mental Health Day message, the immediate obstacle we need to overcome is stigma. Young people may hesitate to seek help not because they do not want to get better, but because they are worried about the consequences of seeking help. They worry whether it would leave a permanent mark on their record and affect their future; they worry whether it would disappoint their families; and they worry whether they would be judged by people around them.
20. We should aim to make mental health conditions no different from physical illnesses or injuries. If I break my leg in school while doing sports, I will go to the hospital Emergency Department, and I will tell my teachers immediately. If my health screening reveals that I have high cholesterol, I will see my family doctor to manage it. People need to seek help when they need it, without fear of being judged or disadvantaged.
21. Recognising this, practices concerning mental health have evolved over the years. For example, public service agencies do not ask job applicants about their mental health conditions, unless the nature of the job requires this, such as if you are applying to be an Republic of Singapore Air Force pilot or a uniformed personnel, then that information may be required. When a public organisation does ask, the focus will be on whether the individual is fit to carry out their duties safely, rather than whether the individual has a mental health condition or has sought treatment per se.
22. The Workplace Fairness Act, which will come into effect later next year, will ensure the same across more employers. The Act will disallow employers from making adverse employment decisions based on one’s mental health conditions, unless there are genuine, job-related requirements. So that will make a big difference.
23. The same principle applies in healthcare and in schools. Medical and counselling records are kept for a professional reason – to help healthcare professionals and school counsellors understand the young person’s history, so they can provide better care and support. They will not be used to disadvantage young people in their academic or employment pursuits.
24. MOH and MOE will continue to safeguard patient and student confidentiality rigorously, and assure patients that we are doing so and we will continue to do so. Confidentiality is related to another important consideration when young people seek help, which is parental consent. I talked about this in my message too. Today, practices around parental consent are uneven across mindline 1771, schools, community services and healthcare settings. Everyone has slightly different practices. For some young people, concerns about involving their parents may make them hesitant to seek counselling support.
25. MOH is developing a set of guidelines to provide clearer guidance on this across all sectors. The aim is to assure a young person that it is safe to seek initial help. A young person stepping forward to seek help should not have to worry that their parents would somehow be automatically and immediately informed. Although parents are always part of the solution, and they will likely have to be involved at the right time as care progresses. Our key consideration must always the well-being of the young person.
26. We will be seeking the public’s views on our proposed guidelines. We have many practitioners on the ground and in the audience. Your experience will be especially valuable in helping us strike the right balance, and I hope to have your inputs too.
Strengthen Community Support
27. Third, we will strengthen the system of community support.
28. Over the years, we have built up many community mental health services, all with very good intentions, but they may come across as piecemeal. For example, to support those with early mental health symptoms, we set up CREST teams (Community Outreach Team). For moderate conditions, we have COMIT (Community Intervention Team). For youths, there are similar teams called CREST-Youth and Youth Integrated Teams (YIT). Public Healthcare Institutions (PHIs), such as the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), have also been offering community mental health services.
29. So we have many teams going around doing the same thing, very well intentioned, doing good work. But each service offers a different level of support and targets different groups. Community organisations that run these services have to navigate the various schemes and fulfil different Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). They need to organise their resources in a sensible way to deliver effective services, while fulfilling all the criteria of the schemes you are participating in.
30. We need to press the reset button, and rearrange and reconfigure the current arrangements. We will bring all these community teams into a single network, under a single framework, including funding and appropriate KPIs. Funding should be more stable with a sufficient baseline to ensure community organisations have the assurance and confidence to retain and build your mental health capabilities, while at the same time we must recognise efforts that improve access to care and mental health outcomes.
31. A unified framework will ensure that mental health support services are more integrated. It will also help individuals navigate the system more easily and get the appropriate help they require. And for social service agencies, you can be rest assured, more stable funding allowing you to build capabilities.
32. For example, the pathway today requires schools to refer all cases requiring additional mental health support only to PHIs such as IMH. But a more integrated arrangement and sensible arrangement, would be to triage the cases, evaluate each case on their severity, so that less severe cases and those with early symptoms, can be referred to community organisations instead of IMH, and there they can receive more accessible and appropriate support. This would also open up opportunities for closer partnerships between schools and community organisations.
33. MOH will work with the Agency for Integrated Care and our community organisations to transition to this new framework in the coming months. As we reset, we also reset all the names, we will drop COMIT, YIT, CREST. We will call this new network HealthierMind SG. It is a simple self-explanatory name. So, we have Healthier SG, Age Well SG, and now HealthierMind SG.
Integrate the Services of Family Doctors
34. Finally, we will leverage our family doctors to complete the picture. They are an integral and important part of community healthcare, and many are already working with us through Healthier SG. They can play a bigger role in our community support system for mental health. This is the norm in other countries, like Australia and the United Kingdom.
35. We have taken some steps in this direction. Last year, we introduced Healthier SG Care Protocols for Major Depressive Disorder and Generalised Anxiety Disorder, to support GPs in providing care for patients with these conditions. We have also paired Healthier SG GP clinics with community mental health service providers, to provide more holistic care and follow-up to patients. We plan to do more and strengthen the involvement of GPs in mental health support over time. So, these are the four immediate priorities, all ongoing.
Closing
36. And so today, I am very glad to see so many counselling professionals here today. I look forward to your support, as we embark on this significant transformation of mental health support in Singapore.
37. I am heartened to learn that as part of CCC’s 60th anniversary, CCC will be making available 60 training places for counselling professionals in the community.
38. We will need many more counselling professionals in the coming years, as we build more integrated and effective community assistance, more supportive schools, stronger families and more resilient individuals.
39. I wish all of you a meaningful and fruitful conference.