Question
Mdm Halimah Yacob
Jurong GRC
To ask the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports
(a) whether the Ministry has completed the review of the Child Protection Services that was announced in June this year;
(b) what are the gaps that have been identified; and (c) when will the changes be implemented.
Oral Answer
My Ministry had initiated the review of the Child Protection System in May this year to assess the adequacy and robustness of our system. The work is being undertaken by an inter-agency workgroup comprising MCYS officers, representatives from various government agencies and external members familiar with the child protection system. We have also engaged two overseas consultants to carry out independent reviews of the Service, paying specific attention to the effectiveness of our internal processes, training and resourcing of our officers and the inter agency partnerships. To understand the inter-agency challenges, we conducted several focus group discussions with key stakeholders; namely the Hospitals, Schools, the Police, Voluntary Children’s Homes and Family Services Centres.
The findings of the consultants and the focus group discussions are still being deliberated by the Inter-Ministry Workgroup. Preliminary findings reaffirm the need for closer collaboration and coordination between Child Protection Services, on one hand, and other government and community agencies, on the other hand. We also need to provide more training for all stakeholders in detecting, reporting and handling of reports of child abuse. We are also evaluating the need to develop more specialised services to support children who have been victims of abuse.
We expect the review to be completed by March 2011.