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More support for children with developmental needs and persons with disabilities

2024-03-06 00:00:00.0 海峡时报-新加坡原网页

SINGAPORE – Parents of children with developmental needs will get more support with a slew of measures unveiled during the debate on the budget of the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) on March 6.

These include more places in early intervention programmes and lower fees for Special Student Care Centres.

Here are some highlights:

1. More help for children and training for caregivers

About 1,500 places will be added to the Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children (Eipic) and Eipic-P in 2024.

Eipic supports children with developmental needs, such as autism and mild language developmental delays, in a group-based setting. It is provided by social service agency operators, while Eipic-P is provided by private sector operators.

This will ensure more children with developmental needs can receive timely support, said Minister of State for Social and Family Development Sun Xueling on March 6.

In 2023, Eipic and Eipic-P supported 5,600 children under the age of seven who require medium to high levels of early intervention support. At the end of 2023, there were 2,600 children on the wait-list for both programmes.

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“We will continue to expand our government-funded places to serve 80 per cent of children requiring medium to high levels of early intervention by 2027, up from 60 per cent in 2022,” said Ms Sun. “This will help to reduce overall wait times for enrolment into an early intervention centre, so that children with developmental needs can receive timely support.”

To further help parents, she said that a new six-month programme to train caregivers of two- to three-year-old children with developmental needs will start in the second half of 2024.

Children are referred to this pilot, known as Eipic-Care, by paediatricians when they are assessed to require early intervention.

In the programme, caregivers learn how to support their children’s social communication and engagement and behaviour through group workshops and individual sessions with psychologists.

Ms Sun said parents need to be equipped with the skills to provide early intervention support at home.

“International studies have also shown that parents are in the best position to embed intervention related to social and emotional skills in their children’s daily lives,” she said.

The pilot will run for three years, starting in one region. Parents can expect to attend sessions every one to two weeks. More details will be announced later in 2024.

2. Lower student care centre fees

Middle-income families will pay less for their children to attend special student care centres when current fee caps, set by the Government to ensure affordability, are lowered in July. Their out-of-pocket expenses will be reduced by up to 40 per cent.

About 100 families are expected to benefit from this adjustment each year.

Currently, fees for these centres, which offer subsidised before- and after-school care services for students with special needs aged seven to 18, are subject to fee caps, depending on their household income. Families also receive means-tested subsidies.

Special student care centres will receive additional government funding so that out-of-pocket expenses for after-school care for students with special needs as a portion of household income is similar to that for typically developing children.

For example, families with a monthly household income of $6,000 will see a one-third decrease in their out-of-pocket expenses paid for special student care centres, from $500 to around $340, said Ms Sun.