MSF and NCSS Partner SUSS to Build Research and Capabilities for the Social Service Sector

04 Nov 2023

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Social Service Awards and Graduation Ceremony 2023 recognises over 560 individuals including sector professionals with at least 20 years of service.

SINGAPORE, 4 NOVEMBER 2023 – Today marks the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) and the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) to develop knowledge and capabilities for the social service and early childhood sectors at the Social Service Awards and Graduation Ceremony 2023.

2. The MOU between MSF, NCSS and SUSS seeks to strengthen collaborations in research, education and service for the social service and early childhood sectors. These include conducting research into family and early childhood-related areas, equipping fresh, in-service and mid-career practitioners with real-world experiences and an understanding of Singapore’s social policy approaches, and expanding service-learning opportunities for SUSS students. A key collaboration will be SUSS’ involvement in co-organising the Asian Family Conference 2024 with MSF to deepen partnerships with local and overseas academics, community agencies and governments on research relevant for the Asian and local context.
3. This MOU is in line with MSF’s Year of Celebrating Social Service Partners, where both MSF and NCSS recognise the integral contributions of partners from within and beyond the social service sector, to build strong families, resilient individuals, and a caring society.

SSI – Beyond 20 years of capability development for the social service sector

4. The Social Service Institute (SSI) celebrates its 20th Anniversary this year. For the past two decades, SSI has focused on its role as a training institute for the social service sector. To date, SSI has provided over 150,000 training places through more than 5,800 training courses. To enable professionals to access learning resources in a timely and convenient manner, SSI will double its current 50 hours’ worth of e-learning resources to more than 100 hours beyond FY2024. This will be complimentary for all social service professionals.
5. In addition to formal learning through both physical and online platforms, SSI will also be putting more emphasis on social learning by bringing together like-minded social service professionals who can learn from each other’s experience and knowledge. In line with 70-20-10 learning and development model¹ which holds that individuals acquire 70% of their knowledge and skills from job-related experiences, SSAs are encouraged to put in place workplace learning mechanisms to support their employees to acquire skills and knowledge on the-job. To date, 10 SSAs have embarked on a Workplace Learning pilot by SSI in partnership with the Singapore Institute of Technology to improve processes, productivity and performance. These allowed their staff to pick up skills like problem solving, process improvement and coaching that were useful competencies that could be translated to other work areas. Learnings from this pilot will also be shared as best practices with other SSAs to help them improve their workplace learning.

Over 560 recognised at the Social Service Awards and Graduation Ceremony 2023

6. As a celebration of SSI’s 20th Anniversary, NCSS recognised over 480 SSPs with at least 20 years of service from over 65 SSAs.
7. The ceremony also celebrated the achievements of more than forty graduates of the Diploma in Social Service, Higher Diploma in Social Service and the Advance Certificate in Social Service offered by SSI.
8. 21 Social Service Fellows were also recognised this year who have gone beyond their call of duty to improve professional capabilities and service quality in the social service sector and awarded 17 outstanding individuals with a passion for social service and strong leadership qualities with the Social Service Scholarship.

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¹ The 70-20-10 learning and development model is based on the principle that individuals obtain 70% of their knowledge and skills from job-related experiences, 20% from interactions with others, and 10% from formal learning.

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