SPEECH ON COMLINK PLUS 

By Denise Phua

I commend the Ministry of Social and Family Development's (MSF) efforts to support families living in public rental flats with young children through ComLink Plus.

As Mayor of Central, I am privileged to serve these families with some excellent ComLink officers, especially in the Jalan Besar and Ang Mo Kio towns.

ComLink Plus, piloted and now to be scaled, provides for Family Coaches and also financial incentives to ComLink families who actively uplift themselves in these 4 areas – pre-school education, employment, financial stability, and saving for home ownership.

However, my firsthand experience with assisting challenged families reveals complexities beyond what is initially apparent. For example, it is not always easy to secure a preferred location for a family of eight living in a two-room flat. Timely school attendance becomes a struggle when a single bathroom must accommodate the entire family. Moreover, a sole breadwinner relying on cash-based, flexible employment as a platform worker will find difficulties foregoing his job to pursue further education for a better future job. In addition, despite MSF’s efforts, there are still many well-meaning donors and volunteers who are unaware of or prefer to do their own thing, leading to numerous un-coordinated touchpoints, conflicting advice or support, service overlap, and hindering a family's ability to follow a coherent uplift plan.

I seek an update from MSF regarding:

• The progress, including the number of families served and the impact of the ComLink Plus pilot to date;

• Lessons learned from the pilot, including key challenges and the resources required;

• Strategies to address the issue of multiple points of contact so the Family Coach can be more effective; and

• Measures to ensure that volunteers recruited to assist ComLink families are suitable, reliable, and committed and do not just walk in and out of the lives of the families.