Personal shame, stigma and doing well: Anita Fam, President of the National Council of Social Services

SINGAPORE: Anita Fam is known in the social services sector as a former lawyer who, more than 20 years ago, became a full-time volunteer in the areas of disability, palliative care, family health and mental health.

Her dedication recently appointed her as President of the National Council of Social Services (NCSS), a role she formally assumes on August 1.

From the beginning of our conversation she concedes that she is one of the few privileged who can afford to volunteer full time because she has no financial constraints that others do.

But she also reveals that, in a way, she has been part of the area since her birth.

It's a story that she says she does not tell very often and that is related to the fact that she is an adopted child, something that her mother revealed to her when she was four years old.

"It is so important to tell your children that they are adopted," says Mrs. Fam.

"If they discover a day in a way that they did not expect to have, this could be the most devastating thing. They must be informed that they have been intentionally sought after and sought after by their adoptive parents.Then, one feels special because you are chosen as opposed to another situation where they might think about it in terms of having been abandoned by their biological parent. "

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Recently, she found her birth certificate among her parents' property and revealed more information about his biological mother.

"She was single and was 19 years old at the time. The birth certificate says "Care of: The Salvation Army" which is an organization in the social services sector. I shared this with another member of the NCSS board and he said, "Wah, do you realize that you have come to a full circle?" You started your life in the social services sector.

"It seems divinely expected that I have returned to this region to give back.

I ask her if she has always wanted to look for her biological mother. The normally assured and positive voice softens as she tells me that she would prefer "do not".

"If you think about it, if she were single then she probably did not want many people to know. to be a grandmother or a great grandmother now with her own family and the last thing she would like is that some sort of nowhere and bring out something that she could have kept secret all her life. ruin someone's life or disrupt it.

"I'm looking back now and I think it's so brave to have experienced something like this at 19 and the early 60's."

Enough to not fetch parental love elsewhere.

A POWERFUL TRANSITION [19659002] It may have had its roots in the social services sector, but its conscious involvement in this sector came much later in life.

Around mid-thirties, she decided to take a break from the legal sector to take care of her

A phone call from activist Leaena Tambyah of the Association for the welfare of Asian Women (AWWA), an organization for which Mrs. Fam had already done volunteer legal work, changed everything.

Ms. Tambyah, played a role in creating a playgroup for disabled children, which eventually became the AWWA school, asked Ms. Fam to be vice-president. President of a mobile therapy service called Therapy and Education for Children in General Education. This help helped children whose parents could not afford to have therapy sessions in hospitals.

"I believe that she saw me as someone who had free time," says Mrs. Fam laughing

She quickly adds that the experience was powerful.

"AWWA has provided multiple services in the areas of elder care, family, disability, special education and in each area the funding is different. I have come to better understand the intricacies of funding and programming in these areas.

This led her to sit on many boards over the years and talk passionately about the needs of society

THE HALT OF MENTAL ILLNESS – "I WILL FEEL LIKE I AM EXPLOSER YOU"

One of the areas that is of particular interest to you is mental health and the stigma associated with mental illness. 19659002] His own parents have suffered at various stages of their lives from depression and anxiety disorders.

"My first encounter with depression was at the age of 18, and my father went into profound clinical depression. At that time nobody was talking about it. "

His father, Michael Fam, was a prominent figure in Singaporean society having served as chairman of the Housing and Development Council, then president of the Mass Rapid Transit Corporation.

At this point, he is in charge. was removed and the void of having no vocation was too difficult to handle for him.

"I remember that my mother came to my room and told me not to tell a soul . She told me that I did not have to tell her even to my brother. It was a very scary thing because I was studying for my "A" levels and there was no one to turn me to. My father spent a lot of time with me. He came to my room, sat on my bed and cried. I had to bottle it when I was 18 years old. I had the impression of exploding, it was horrible. "

Later in the year, she could not go out alone and wrote to her brother who was studying abroad at the time." She told him what was happening. 19659002] His father finally asked for help and advice and medication helped him overcome his depression within six months.

"I would never have talked about that while He was alive because he felt the stigma, but when my father died in 2014, I felt that by sharing it, I would help others. "

Today, she hopes they would share more as they go through or recover from such difficulties.

"We have to talk about these things more openly and realize that it's not going to happen. There is nothing taboo about it, the problem is that sometimes there are negative consequences. if someone knew you had a history of mental illness, he does not want to hire you, we have to change that, but it's not because you have ever had a history of mental illness. This will affect your performance in the workplace. "

To help that, the NCSS worked on a peer support program for people in recovery

" These are people with lived experiences. where they have had mental health problems and th they have come out and they can be mentors for others in the workplace. This helps employers to understand because these peers can explain to their employers what the trip would look like and that they could be a mentor to the person who has returned to the job market.

Her mother also suffered from mental health problems – an anxiety disorder for most of her life and, late in the day, Alzheimer's disease.

"I was his main caregiver. I've organized everything in his life – the visits of his doctors, his activities. "

She was fortunate to have some help. She hired a helper and her husband and children also played a role in "adding normality" to her mother's life.

"You are dealing with someone you do not know anymore. The elements are so different. There are no more filters and it's a completely different person. The advice that I gave a very dear friend who had walked on this road, just a few steps from me, was to enter their world. Do not fight him. It's their reality. Do not try to add logic or try saying "No, it's the day" when they think it's night time.

"So when she asked me where her mother and father were, I would not say they were dead. long ago. I would just say that they are not here. She also had the habit of thinking that I was her sister, Joyce. "

Mrs. Fam would embrace this role because it made her mother happy.

IMPROVING ASSISTANCE TO THOSE WHO NEED IT

Experience has taught her that those who need care in any area – whether it is financial, social or medical help – need help.

"J & # I was fortunate to have help, to have an assistant for example.For others, this can be more difficult.They need to access to information and resources, not only for those they like, but for themselves.We must have a portal or one-stop shop for information and people to help them navigate the field and know how they can help with services or with the financial aspects. "

She says the situation has improved today Service offices under the Ministry of the Dev social and family development are being created all over the island.

But she also admits that it is possible to do more in the social services sector to ensure that this approach is more effective. One of the keys is to have competent manpower.

"I think the NCSS plays an important role in equipping organizations so that they can more effectively manage the workforce and the volunteers. This helps organizations with training expertise. They also need volunteer managers and we need to train them. We must help them with systems. "

Investing in such initiatives has helped at least one of the organizations that she chairs, the Assisi Hospice.

HAND-WORK, FAIR PAYMENT AND VOLUNTEERS

Wages are Another Labor-Related Question

Wages in the social services sector must be "fair."

I told him that some people think that those who work for such organizations should do so by means of mission rather than financial gain, and it is often feared that those at the top will receive too high wages.

I ask her how she would define "just" in this context

"I would say that market rates, private sector market rates or just a little Personally, I am blessed to be in this situation where I can be a full-time volunteer, but many people have to have jobs to support their family and if you pay them very little, how will they live? And if the private sector is much more attractive, why would competent and skilled people come here?

"If you have good people who are much more efficient in designing their programs, their service delivery is much more appropriate for recipients, you can probably do things faster, more efficiently. in fact a cost-benefit approach that we look at. "

The principle should be applied to staff at all levels in social service organizations, she says.

However, she admits that skill and wages must be accompanied

"Those who do not have a heart will not stay long because it can be a very emotionally draining job: the CEOs such organizations must be particularly in touch with the field and have the heart "

She also urges more to enter the field as volunteers.

" I was just looking at some recent statistics and now one in three Singaporeans actually if you have given one or two days a year, it's something, you can not volunteer, but you can volunteer sporadically, but I think mostly millennials, in fact, they are a lot more altruistic, and that is refl Even in their choice of employment, they even chose to work in jobs where there is some kind of social good.So, I do not think things are dark s. "

For all this to work, the money needed to maintain organizations and fund programs is vital and advocates for more sustainable funding methods. Donors now like to fund endowments. The whole concept of an endowment fund is that you preserve the capital and you spend the interest, so that the financing is viable. So I can contribute to the endowment, but I know that the capital contribution of my legacy will last 20 years or forever and that it will bring certainty to the people who use it.

The social services sector also seeks to facilitate collaboration and stimulate service delivery through two new digital initiatives

The first is a computer system to improve back-end processes.

Developed jointly by NCSS and Singapore Pools, iShine Cloud provides a suite of integrated IT services. It includes office productivity, shared storage, human resources and accounting tools, which volunteer organizations can access at subsidized rates.

The second initiative is the Social Service Navigator, an interactive online platform that consolidates information. on social service providers, programs and resources all over Singapore to help social service professionals find the resources they need to support their

Can the government do more?

As the sector continues to evolve, I ask her if she feels that the government can do more to help those who can not afford social services. She thinks that there has been considerable improvement in this area over the last decade, but she says more can be done to help more people access financial aid and subsidies by recalibrating eligibility criteria, especially for middle income groups.

"When it came to test-methods for example, I had the habit of calling it an" average "test.It was very naughty. It has been carefully calibrated to a certain degree now that I think it's a little less naughty for some families, but my personal opinion is that we can be a little more generous in the way we determine that , so maybe the time to come. "

" I WAS SELF-ABSORBED, I AM ASHAMED "

Approaching the end of our conversation, she tells me that her involvement in the social services sector has changed enormously.

She remembers what she was before.

"I guess in the days you were working, what do you want? You want to make a lot of money. I was a junior partner in a law firm, I did not think about nobody except for myself and it did not seem bad to do it.I was not harming anyone.I was having a good time.I was absorbed by myself.I did not m & # 39; Never came to mind that there were people around me who did not live the kind of life I lived in.

"I'm ashamed when I look in Especially when I was in college, I did not realize that my classmates had a hard time.Some of my law classmates had to hold two jobs while they were studying. Was going to the beach, watching movies.Can you imagine someone who splits her buttocks and who sees those other spoiled kids going around, who can go to the restaurant? Do not eat without having to count their dollars? "

What she does today may not quite fit"

"If I am able to develop a program or service that allows more than people to have a better life, especially in the area of ​​disability or mental health or I will die happy. "