Ministry Of Community Development, Youth And Sports: New youth guidance programme and support system to combat youth delinquency

The inter-ministry Central Youth Guidance Office (CYGO)¹ aims to further tackle youth delinquency by strengthening early intervention on youth-at-risk, including rolling out a pilot youth guidance programme, as well as developing an inter-agency youth information system and a youth guidance support system. The initiatives will be carried out under the purview of the National Committee on Youth Guidance and Rehabilitation.

Youth GO! Programme Pilot

CYGO will pilot a new Youth GO! Programme in a Family Service Centre in North East CDC in the second half of 2011, to target at-risk youth in the community who are not receiving any form of support. The Programme will have three pillars of intervention: (i) outreach to the youth; (ii) youth- and family-centric case management; and (iii) coordination of assistance and services available at the community level, to bring about integrated solutions for the youth.

The Youth GO! Programme will target youth aged 12 to 21 who have dropped out of school and are not in employment; opted out or dropped out of the Enhanced STEP-UP Programme; or are served with multiple Youth Hanging Out Late Letters (YHOL) by the police. The Programme will also target youth who have completed the Guidance Programme, Probation, Enhanced STEP-UP or Streetwise Programme but are assessed to need further support. A budget of $1.2 million has been set aside to roll out the pilot over the period 2011 to 2012.

Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, said, “The Youth GO! Programme not only complements, but it goes beyond the suite of existing youth-at-risk support programmes by actively reaching out to at-risk youth, and extending additional support to those who have completed other programmes but require more support.”

Youth Information System

CYGO will also develop an inter-agency Youth Information System to enable seamless sharing of data on youth-at-risk among MCYS, the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). This system will enable the three ministries to draw a composite picture of youth-at-risk in Singapore for research and to guide recommendations on policy decisions and programme development.

“A Youth Information System that will allow us to have a holistic multi-ministry overview of at-risk youth has been long overdue. In order to fully maximise the potential benefits of this system, we will need the full cooperation of the various Ministries and agencies involved,” remarked the Minister of State for Education and Home Affairs and Chairman of the National Committee on Youth Guidance and Rehabilitation, Mr. Masagos Zulkifli.

Youth Guidance Support System

A coordinated post care support network aims to provide continual support for youth-at-risk up to the age of 21 years. CYGO will study how to establish such a network for youth who have completed intervention and rehabilitation programmes but still require extended support. The support network would involve and coordinate the efforts of agencies and services at the community level, so as to help youth who have completed various programmes reintegrate into the community.

A needs assessment prior to a youth’s release from care would help identify the possible areas of needs that the youth might have. Within the network, there would be strong linkages and referral processes between governmental agencies and the community services to ensure timely and appropriate support in areas such as education, job placement, and career guidance. Periodic checks through telephone calls, face-to-face meetings and contact through new media, such as Facebook and Twitter, could be done to see if the youth needs additional assistance.

¹The Central Youth Guidance Office was set up in July 2010 to maintain an overview of the entire offending spectrum, identify service and intervention gaps, and coordinate upstream efforts to prevent youth at risk from committing crimes. CYGO is the secretariat to the National Committee on Youth Guidance and Rehabilitation (NYGR).