SINGAPORE – Scaling up efforts of employers’ capabilities to hire persons with disabilities, and ensuring caregivers get enough help are among the 20 recommendations proposed under the third Enabling Masterplan, a five-year roadmap to guide the development of policies, programmes, services and other support for those with disabilities.
The 22-member steering committee shared its report and proposals for 2017 to 2021 at a media conference at Enabling Village in Lengkok Bahru on Tuesday (Dec 12). Four four key thrusts were outlined to help Singapore achieve its vision of a caring and inclusive society.
The committee’s proposals revolve around improving the quality of life for persons with disabilities, supporting caregivers, building the community and building an inclusive society.
This is the third set of five-year plans to be unveiled, drawn up by the 22-member committee after a series of consultations involving over 400 members of the public over eight months.
It was announced earlier in April this year that these members, hailing from both the public and private sectors, had been tasked to help develop the new five-year plan.
The committee also identified key trends such as the increasing longevity of persons with disabilities, a growing number of people diagnosed with autism, coupled with shrinking families and an ageing population – which would mean that ageing caregivers would find it harder to care for their grown-up children and themselves.
The report spelled out how it would improve the quality of life of these persons with disabilities by developing flexible service models for them, ensuring the timely and early detection of children with disabilities by enhancing the existing network of touchpoints, developing open and customised employment models to provide more pathways to employment, and studying if there is a need to establish a disability office.
In ramping up its support for caregivers, they recommended that efforts should be made to improve the caregivers’ well-being, enhance their caregiving capabilities, and to support them in their future care planning.
And beyond raising the capability and capacity of the disability service providers, it also aimed to step up on its data collection and analytics to better coordinate and plan services for people with disabilities, and include them in the Smart Nation initiative.
Among the committee’s members are board member of the National Council of Social Service and chairperson of the committee Anita Fam; Ms Chia Yong Yong, president of voluntary welfare organisation SPD, which supports people with disabilities, and Ms Denise Phua, president of the Autism Resource Centre.
The Ministry of Social and Family Development said in a statement that it would “study the recommendations carefully and respond in due course”.
This third Enabling Masterplan will build on the progress of the second Enabling Masterplan (2012-2016).
Some of the key developments under the second masterplan include the setting up of SG Enable in 2013 as an agency dedicated to enabling person with disabilities in areas like employability training, and children with special needs being included under the Compulsory Education Act from 2019.
Support a new charity fund – the TODAY Enable Fund – to nurture the talent of persons with disabilities, help them fulfil their aspirations, and to improve their education, skills and employment prospects. The fund was launched on Dec 2 under the patronage of Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and supported by this newspaper. Find out how you can help via www.todayonline.com/enable
