Day 21

We visited 2 different SACs today, which was an interesting experience. Not having really visited an SAC for the purpose of looking at its programmes and activities before, I was quite excited to look at what was happening at the ground level for the elderly.





I was very impressed at how one SAC clocked 180 programmes in one year, aside from running daily programmes and activities. Of course after being told that you can have as many as 40 programmes in one week during Chinese New Year, I adjusted my level of "being impressed" - however given how that centre has only 2 people running it, I am still quite amazed that they managed to do that even with the duties and programmes that run daily at the centre itself.





One thing I did notice however is how much space the second SAC had - more so than a lot of VWOs and FSCs that I have been to! The first SAC in comparison (and even the one at Kaki Bukit where we went for the FGD) are much much smaller in comparison, and this means of course that the programmes they can provide for the seniors there are necessarily much more limited due to space constraints, leading to a big difference in their ability to serve the community there. This makes me wonder if this is taken into account when assessing their KPI at the end of each year.





It also makes me wonder how the government also allots space for social service providers, particularly in areas that require several different types of service providers (e.g. FSC, SAC, etc.) because as I heard there was one SAC that could no longer expand because there was simply no space left. In such a case how is it possible to provide sufficiently for residents and clients if the SACs themselves do not have the resources? Again, this boils down to competition for resources and being creative enough to know a) how to get those resources (particularly if they are out there but not necessarily easily within reach, or if you have to compete for them), and b) how you make the most of and stretch the resources you already have.





One of the SAC managers also shared that someone at the same position as herself (a manager) at another centre was on the board of directors for her centre, which I found extremely strange and odd, particularly as this is someone on the same level as her, and within the same organisation itself, and also within the same (public) sector. This makes no sense to me, and does not seem entirely right somehow. If it were between sectors (public and private), I could understand to some extent. If it was between different organisations, it would also not be as odd, although I might still find it a tad questionable. However, for this to happen within the same organisation and for someone who is supposed to be at the same level as herself being placed above her as a superior on her board of directors seems almost wrong to me. If i were her, I wouild feel extremely small, and be quite demoralised. For a peer to be elevated to such an extent by your bosses such that she practically becomes your boss would be extraordinarily uncomfortable, and to me messes up the entire hierarchy of the organisation itself.





I can imagine it would be even more demoralising if all this was going on, and you are actually doing a good job at work, and you yourself know it, but your higher ups and bosses do not see it and keep comparing you to someone with whom it is actually impossible to compare. Someone who has an infinite number of years of experience over you, and with more man power, will obviously do better in terms of KPI etc. There is no way you could surpass her given your constraints and limitations. However, somehow her bosses seem to expect her to do so, which is entirely unfair, particularly as they do not acknowledge how good a job she has done in turning the centre around in such a short frame of time. Rather than encouraging and affirming her, they put her down - and put her down even further by elevating her colleague/peer to the status of being her boss.





Listening to her talk about all this made me feel sad and quite indignant on her behalf, particularly as I would expect people in the social service sector to "know better", being involved in a sector where treating people with dignity and affirming the self-worth of each individual is of top priority (and amongst one of the main reasons why the SACs were formed in the first place)! Yet this is something they do not seem to be practising within their organisation itself, with their staff. I believe that if an organisation is going to "sell" something, they have to practice it in their own "back yard" first, within their organisation.





The sad thing is that she is so full of passion for the work, but she is leaving the job. In this sector, there is a huge necessity for passion for the work you do, if not you burn out very quickly. As you do not need to be trained in social work to do this job, getting a social worker into this sector would be difficult. However, you still must get someone with a heart for the elderly, and yet has fantastic administration skills, is extremely resourceful (as you have to find your own resources), has great PR skills, have good rapport with the elderly (as you need to connect with them to keep them coming to the SAC), and be able to multi-task and have good time management, because you have to do all this at once, and run several programmes and activities and organise all of them at the same time (or concurrently). There is so much work to do, yet the pay is not amazing, and without recognition and affirmation from your bosses, it is no wonder that it would be easy to burn out in this sector.





I did think that it might be good to bring in a special counsellor or community worker into the centres whose sole job/purpose is to work with the elderly, build rapport, build strong ties with the community, and provide counselling services as well - all the "extra" parts of what the SAC manager seems to be doing (but is not exactly directly within the job scope). However, there is insuffucient budget, social workers might still not want to go into this sector (because it has no prospects - it is essentially a dead-end job), and also there would be an overlap of resources with already available counselling services (such as the 3 main counselling centres for the elderly). Also, I realised that yes, one must keep in mind what the purpose of the SAC was - to increase social interaction of hte elderly through programmes, and keep them from becoming isolated socially, especially as these are the elderly living in one or two-room flats. Thus we need to make sure that they have people looking out for them, particularly the frail elderly who are not sufficiently ambulant. As a community, we need to keep them busy and occupied - and this is the very first objective that the SAC must fulfill first.

I also do wonder about the system, with the CEL in place now and how necessary or helpful it is at all. It is still in the early stages and early years, so it is too early to see just how useful it can be as a "one-stop centre". However, it decreases collaboration at the ground level - I would not know which worker I am working or collaborating with, would not know what the worker is like (and if their working style would suit my client), and it might also be difficult to see how far along the collaboration is and what is happening with my client "at the other end". It might make the social service sector more impersonal, as collaborating becomes more impersonal, and this might take its toll on the sector, as social services have been thriving on a lot of personal links and connections all these years (with workers developing relationships working with each other and tapping on those to better serve clients). So the question is, with CEL now in place, would it be possible to still keep these ties? And would the CEL system be as or more effective than using such networks, or less so?

During the time spent talking to the managers at the SACs, I noticed my supervisor using a lot of micro skills with them. It was very interesting to see tracking, probing, reframing, affirming, etc. coming into play even with people within the sector. Then slowly the SAC manager started opening up, from being very bubbly and being extremely positive and optimistic about how things have improved at the SAC, to actually talking about matters close to her heart that were bothering her, and finally to hinting that she might be resigning. What I realised was that a big reason for her being able to open up is that with the use of the micro skills, there was a sense of trust that she could talk to and open up to my supervisor (and I am sure she also wanted to prepare them for her resignation). It is quite amazing to see how micro skills can really come in and help people to open up.

That being said, it appears that there are a lot of people leaving the sector, which makes me wonder if it is just a coincidence or if there is something which the sector and the major players in the sector (such as NCSS or MCYS and the various organisations in charge of the SACs) need to address. Social workers would not go into the sector because they would not want a job that cannot go anywhere, yet it is not as if it is easy to groom individuals with the passion for working with the elderly and who have the people skills to do so coupled with the administration and resource skills necessary to run such a centre (particularly as there are likely to be better paying jobs out there that require people of similar skills). In that case, the government might need to step in to find ways to keep people in this sector - just like how they need to find ways to keep social workers in the social services, and find new ways to "entice" people to join the profession.