Social Work Spotlight - International Episode 10: Francine & Nadrah (Singapore)

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

In this episode I speak with Francine and Nadrah in Singapore. Francine worked as a PE teacher in Singapore before moving to Australia to study social work at age 40. She worked in many major Australian cities and particularly loved Darwin where she predominantly supported Aboriginal communities in the renal sector, before returning to Singapore to support her elderly parents in 2021. After 8 years of sirens and split-second saves as a paramedic, Nadrah recently swapped her stethoscope for a listening ear. Nadrah has made a mid-career switch into social work to guide others with the right support and services, with no flashing lights required, just a steady supply of coffee.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Mental Health Academy - https://www.mentalhealthacademy.com.au/ComCare support scheme - https://supportgowhere.life.gov.sg/schemes/COMCARE-SMTA/comcare-short-to-medium-term-assistance-smtaThis episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14MbqVmLglx_rw65L2HFVS7VkBbEsedHEedc7bpNuATg/edit?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

Before beginning, I wish to acknowledge the traditional owners of the countries of guests featured in this podcast and acknowledge their continuing connection to land, waters and community. I pay my respects to the First Nations people, the cultures and the elders, past, present and emerging. Hi and welcome to Social Work Spotlight, where I showcase different areas of the profession each episode, with a 12-month focus on social work. workers around the world as of August 2025. I'm your host, Yasmin Lupus, and today's guests are Francine and Nadra from Singapore. Francine worked as a physical education teacher in a secondary school for 15 years in Singapore before being advised to change professions as she kept losing her voice, so decided to move to Australia to study social work at age 40. Francine worked in many major Australian cities, but particularly loved Darwin, where her biggest and most enriching learning experience

came mainly from supporting Aboriginal communities in the renal sector. She returned to Singapore to support her elderly parents in 2021 and now fills both Singaporean and Australian. In the words of her former manager in Darwin, she's global. After eight years of sirens and split second saves as a paramedic, Nadra recently swapped her stethoscope for a listing ear. Nadra has made a mid-career switch into social work to guide others with the right support and services,

with no flashing lights required just a steady supply of coffee. Thank you so much, Francine, and Nadra for joining me on the podcast. I'm so thrilled to have a chat with you about your work, and thank you for showing me around your facility just now before we started chatting so I can get a bit of an idea of what you do day to day. But I always start with what brought you to social work. When did you graduate and what interested you in the professional? profession. I graduated in 2006, I think. Yeah. I did my university at University of Princeton. But I was

also, prior to doing a degree in social work, I was a physical education teacher for about 15 years. Then I started losing my voice. And then my doctor said, I think you should change your profession. And so I ended up doing a degree in social work. Yeah. Initially, I thought I chose psychology where I realized a was a wrong one. Because my friend was one who said to me, I don't think it's psychology that you're interested in. Because I've got a bit of passion for pastor, okay? Yeah. And so then I realized it's social work. And my aunt said, you're very emotional. You know, how can you do psychology? So I changed the social work. She then made noise by Indian. I laughed at her. I said to her, so you say, emotional. You know, actually, social work got a lot of

emotions, even worse. Yeah. So it suited you better. Actually, yes. Somehow, another, her objection brought me to the right life. Was there a point at which in your training that you thought, oh yeah, okay, she was right, this is where I meant to be? No.

No, I was quite sure I liked it. Yeah. Yeah. It was more me rather than psychology, which is more research-based and stairs and that's not what I like. It's not me. but I struggle with doing social work in Australia particularly when

there's a lot of Aussie accent at the start I just didn't understand a lot of Aussie politics don't know anything about Aussie politics at a time to learn and also one is simply I remembered that but thanks to some good friends

they really help me there's a lot of systems to navigate and a lot of names and acronyms and things to get your head around. Yes, yes. Not as bad as you come back to Singapore, it would be worse. The acronyms here,

everything you use, he said, huh? Yeah. Uh, you know? I literally didn't understand. Yeah.

But my struggle was in Australia was mainly the accent. Initially it was hard. Now it's okay. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And Nadra, how about you?

You're a new graduate. Yes, yes. So for myself, previously I was in barometer. I was a barramid for about eight years. So there was a point of time around COVID and I was asking myself that I want to do more just sending patients to the emergency department because I love being a paramedic that I don't rush and all that but I was sending myself that I want to do more than just sending them to the

A&E. So that's when I started to ask myself what type of degree would I want to pursue. So I discussed with my former boss and he told me that I think you are suited for social work because you like to advocate and do you want to help like you make you make a little bit of you might not have the capacity so because especially you just send patients and after that you do not know what's going to be their next plan and I do realize that in Singapore context you know people do need help and they don't know how to go about it so that's when I start my social work and yeah so here I am I'm only a year old but I feel that there's a difference to how it is as compared to doing my

intervention at that point of time as a paramedic you tend to like okay someone in cardiac arrest you have to act but as compared to a social worker you tend to walk with them and you navigate with them and you know this is my first social work job and I feel that I do not have enough experience like Francine definitely but I think that the sense of satisfaction is growing to know that it's not just okay I will send you off to the emergency department but but I also journey it with you. And you're not necessarily the expert in the situation as you might be as paramedic.

Correct, yeah. So I have to restart and re-learn, which I think that this is something that I could have just went straight as a paramedic and, you know, continued for another 10, 20 years. But I feel that at this point of time in my life, I do want to walk with someone and get more as compared to just sending them off. And is the process similar in Singapore compared to Australia where if you've done a similar qualification and then you've had a bit of experience in the world, do you get to condense the social work degree? Do you get some credit towards it or did you have to start right back from the beginning? I think like what's called Priscilla? We have a psychology degree, but she can

work towards getting a social degree. Back to your question. I do think it's possible, meaning to say that, you know, you see, like, how Francine is from, she studied in Queensland and, you know, coming back here, they do acknowledge that, you know, she does not understand the Singapore system yet, but I don't think they discredit her social work experience. And I do think, like, I do look up to Francine also when it comes to, even though it's different Australia and Singapore context is different how the way our support system is, but I do think the gist of a social work how the way we, the lens is. Yeah, I think, Francine...

I turned to her for her paramedic, her medical, medical workers. For her, it's like when I do need to get, you know, someone more than just, okay, the discharge plans, like, I do need to know, okay, what is a social issue, what should I look out for? And I think for you, you have worked with intellectual disability. Yeah, yeah, and recently I checked the amount. Yeah, and she did share with me how to go about and navigate. And then I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, it's another whole different because as the primary, you're just like, okay, what to do next?

What's my next step? You know, at the year of the day, you just want to make sure this person goes to the hospital without, you know, flat line. Yeah, so here, as a social worker, I do think how do we look at things? So it's a, let me take a step back. Yeah. But you had to go back to university? Yes. And how long was the degree once?

Four years. So you did go back right to the start? Yeah. But unfortunately in Singapore, there is still the element that you have to go back to your core. Maybe psychology, you don't have to do everything because there are more or less similar things. And I do not know what else she does, but she says she can take another thing more and then do it to a social degree.

I see. So I've been encouraging her to go and do a social work. Okay. Well, in Australia, we have the master's qualifying degree. So you can just do the last two years of the social work degree. I see. If you've done, say for yourself or Priscilla, she would just have to do the last two years,

which are the, mostly the practical component. I see. So that you've still had your thousand hours of training on the job. And then as long as you've had that pre-experience. So I have friends with politics degree or something yet, right? They just had another two more years. Yeah, this is called graduate legal mark. Okay.

Yeah. So it's like two years of the, it's like for Priscilla, she doesn't need to go through another whole four years like me because I was from Paramedson and I moved over to social work. But for her, because it's related, it's called Graduate Lipuma and you just take two years. But the intern hours is also the same. It's about 400 hours.

Yeah. So that was not a diploma. That was really a degree. Yeah. But there's also, I've told people this when they've come from other countries where their degree is not recognised in Australia. That's correct, yeah. that really the only areas of work that you need to have that qualification is hospital and child welfare family work.

Everywhere else, yes, you can't call yourself a social worker, but you can do social work. That's correct. I think it's the same with us also. I do think by me coming here to this facility, although I knew, I do bring in the medical background to know that, okay, these are the things that I can still look out for. Yeah. Actually, right now I'm job here. Right, we shouldn't be called medical social work, but because we, not in hospital, but for the ease of terminology for the hospital social workers, they just classify as medical social workers.

I mean, we still do discharge as like, you know, you see just now. The difference here is that right now in this job, correct in your role, very much more case management, very much more discharged learning coordination. We don't do so much of psychosocial assessment or those which hospital does, all of us more intense. Because we don't have all this information that, which the hospital will have that system where they share information in the nature of my office. But we still do. Yeah, we still do. We do have patients here that we do our psychosocial assessment in the sense of how we are trained to do.

Just that it's not like in the sense where it's written in black and white and I'm doing my psychosocial assessment. because I do have patients that when they come here, their discharge plans, definitely is not how the social workers and hospital plans and we have to restart all over again and we have to reach out, we have to make sure that the patients would want that because if they have mental capacity, then we have to follow and respect their decisions. So I do think for myself, there's a small percentage that still... We still do it, like, if the discharge plan changes, then we have to do.

And then, you know, we'll still do our assessments in different ways. It's just like I've been with my experience in Darwin. You know, a lot of us talk about psychosocial assessment. You can't do the same type of style of psychosocial assessment as you would do in the same style like you do. Because with Aboriginals, they like to start off with relationship first. You come and ask them all the questions, they look at you and say, why are you asking you near all these things. they want, I observe how the Indigenous the officer does it, you start talking

this and that, get to know and before you know it you get a whole cycle social assessment and without even having to sit there. Correct, and you know the both and me treat. But here there's a lot of very at-talk the patients who want to meet you as compared to the hospitals and days. Well, you have them for longer, right?

You're with them for a longer period of time so it would be awkward if you didn't build that relationship. Yeah, definitely, definitely. So, I mean, for myself, I do think that, because, like I said, I'm still very new in the social work. So I do take a lot of preference for my previous intern. As previously, I intern in a family social. You know, those, because for Singapore contacts, the ones, I'm not sure whether, actually, do you end for the HDB flats? It's not.

I think Campo Blanc, when you stay, it's a hotel, right? Yeah. Yeah. Were you around the neighbourhood region? It's like, something like apartments, but... Near some of the mosques. If I know. So you might...

Near the main road. Correct. So if you were to go slightly to the back, they have these things called HDB Flats. Okay. So HGB Flats is very similar like apartments, but some of them actually... It's actually governed by the government and they actually, they don't need to pay the full amount of the flats. So social housing. Correct.

So some of these family service centres are actually located under the block. Gotcha. Yeah. And that's when I was sharing before that, I was interning that. I was interning that so I take a lot of reference from there how to really do up my psychosocial assessment and that's when like what you say sometimes you don't even need to do your psychosocial assessment and when just talk to someone everything just comes to you and be like oh everything just tick tit tit tit tit yeah and there's a time and a place for forms

and filling in information that's correct but most of the time if as you say you just build that trust and you build a relationship with someone you can just go away from a discussion and go do that yourself. You don't need to have someone feel awkward or uncomfortable because they know that you're going through something that's very regards and clinical. Yeah. So the Family Service Centre is probably like our, like, Australia's non-profit organisations. So they're funded by the government, but they're not the government. Yes. Yeah. Correct. Correct. In support, a lot of funding is by government. Yeah. Or they will still apply and then they get some. some sort of subsidy.

So I do think maybe the difference also ultimately with Singapore versus Australia, there are different. How a patient is eligible for the subsidy? Sometimes there's also church base or religious, religious funding. Sometimes I don't think you can get the religious organisation to fully fund it because it will be too much for them. So I'll probably get some sort of subsidy with the... We will have a subsidy called Comcare. so long as community care but shortening is Comcare. So this Comcare is actually short to long-term assistance for people with lower income

or those who are not even working. So they have to go through this assessment. Yeah. But one thing I think about Singapore, we are, I would say we are small. As compared to other countries, a lot bigger, it's very convenient to actually, you know, if you want to go around the Japanese more, the Japanese hub, that area, you can find one social service office there, You know, it's very near, it's very convenient because they put all these centres and the neighbourhood areas. Yeah.

Not like some areas in Australia where you were saying they have to go interstate because their nearest facility is somewhere completely. Right, right. I do think that one of the things I appreciate about Singapore is that it's so convenient to... It's both ways, like, it's convenient to seek help. But at the same time, because of the convenience, then, you know, some people might also would abuse, potentially abuse the system as well. it just means that you don't get the opportunity to travel much which previously in my role I would see people up in Cannes so it would be a three-hour flight just to go see someone which is okay that's the very best part of my job when I was working in Darwin because I

moved from a acute Royal Darwin Hospital setting to a renal unit okay to more specialised and I did renal for about for a certain period of my time which is first Fascinating. And I had the opportunity, because I did rental, I had opportunity, so 90% of my patients are Aboriginals, and had an opportunity to go outreach clinics with the doctors to the remote community. So I get to visit a few remote communities, you know, in Northern Territory. And there's nothing like just sitting with someone when they're in a dialysis chair

and they can't go anywhere and you've got an active audio. Right, right, yeah. It's just nice. And I get to see, Duno Nobuoy. Namboy, which has nervous most of Australia, Northern Tip to Bathurst Island, to Catherine, to Minieri and to a few of the remote communities. You take that kind of plane and it goes the single engine plane

and you go down there. Yeah, or the double engine plane. I'm curious what took you to Australia and then tell me what brought you back. Oh, that's where my next question is, right? Okay, so, I mean, study, right? and I didn't actually intend it to stay in Australia for a long time but because having 15 years of teaching experience and just zero years of social work I said to myself how is the government in Singapore when I pay me

at that time social was still new and it's slowly expanding I think your association founded in the 70s yeah probably so but they got association but it didn't grow that much yet. I think now I would say as compared to when I first started to really study, which is what four years ago, as compared to now, actually now social work is a lot more, what you call that, they do take in social work as something very valuable to the extent where they actually be a school for social work. Yeah, as compared to back then, we always associated with social science, psychologists. Yeah, but now we don't belong anywhere. Yes. So, they're And now I do think they take it quite seriously and there's also a school for social work.

So I graduated in 2006. So when I come back in 2007, they were just starting and a lot of people employed and social workers were government. You would be government. There were not that many other agencies that you see right now. Yeah. So when I came back, because I worked for the government, then I said to myself, how can I, how are they going to pay me? with 15 years government service and then zero social work. And that's where I said, okay, let me stay on here.

I applied for the skilled region of Issa and I, and that's why I had to move from Brisbane to Italy. Okay. Then I didn't like it in that day. I worked there for one year, met all her conditions, still had a bit more to go. And actually I wanted to go. I went back to Singapore, I wanted to do it,

but Indian, my migration agent said to me, oh now it's easier to get your body. Burmian residency based on that, closing up that visa, you know. So I decided, I said, can I go to Darwin estate? So I went to Darwin. Did you know anyone in Darwin? Yes, now I knew because I didn't go Darwin. Inshallah, I like Darwin, but I didn't have anyone.

So I decided to go out late when I had a friend, and she helped me until I was able to find a job. Okay? Then I went, by the time when I decided to go to Darwin, I have a friend. So I went there. And she can be quite isolating. All right. Yeah, so I went there, worked in child protection for one year, didn't like it, and got into the hospital, and never looked back, yeah, and I moved from acute care setting, then I did renal, yeah, so yeah, and then, and that brought me places, and then you asked me how here, so I started missing family, having been away for about 19 years in my life, I mean, including my studies, so about 19 years, I said, you know, I started missing. Then talking to my mom, like, you know, when can we go back? My father was in a nursing house, I had to visit him too.

So, you know, yeah, I came back. Then mom was not well too. And when I made a decision to come back, my mom found out that she had cancer. So it was just time. The timing was right. So I came back. Yeah. I think one of the things I say, I don't like to use the word field of priority.

I don't, because filial priority to me, it's a wrong concept. It's about obligation and financial. I prefer because I love them and that's why I want to do it because they brought me up, you know, and cared for me well, yeah. So I came back and because I'm close to all my aunts

were now elderly, so it's just time. But I have not given Australia. I've just renewed my written resident visa for another five years. They allowed me to have another five years so it gives me time to think about what's my next move after that.

How did you find the transition then coming back and doing social work somewhere. You haven't done it before. First of all, I hate to say it, there's ageism here. It was difficult to find a job. Despite the fact that I have so many years' experience, I couldn't, wasn't even shortlisted, but it was even difficult.

I mean, I guess got first through, but after that, oh, I didn't get shortlisted. You know, sometimes not even shortlisted for an interview. Yeah. And then that's later on, I realized, you know, must be my age, because I'm not young. I'm actually 62 this year, so I came back about 60, so it was hard. My first job, my friend introduced me to a family member who at least gave me the foot in the door to just get interview. And I went through the interview, and then I was accepted.

Yeah. But it was hard for me also in that job. Didn't last long. I only six for six months. My other friend who came back to Singapore earlier and me a few years ago, when I said that I, you know, I learned. my job. Is it how long? I said, what you mean? How long? I said six months. He lasted only four months for the first job.

So it's pretty rough. The transition is rough. It's rough. Because a lot of things, practices, thinking, perspectives, or change. Also, coming from a renal in Darwin where dialysis is free and come here in Singapore, actually highly subsidized dialysis, yet it's a user pay system and it's based on means tests. That's one of the things I didn't like. The mainstays in Australia is just, correct me if I'm wrong, okay? It's more husband and wife income of individual if they have.

But down here is a whole household. Oh, wow. So if you just have one, the elderly patient or parents may not be working, but you just have one family member earning a higher, you may not be eligible for subsidy. You pass a threshold or you might get a little bit less subsidy. And then they end up having to owe death. and then you're old and you have to say how to work out, but you still have to pay.

And I had to go up and tell them, you know, how to pay. And you have a patient telling you, you know, your social worker is supposed to help me. You're good for nothing, you're going to help me. You know, it was really hard. Yeah. It's hard for me to take because I couldn't take that system. Yeah. You know, that's one of the reason.

And I felt like still I was a loan shop. Nothing wrong with the organization is just that policy. Yes. So if people can't afford dialysis, did they just not get put on a transplant list? What happens? Everything, they all can get into transplant list as far as I know. They probably go through some tests and all some. But if there's nothing keeping them alive.

That's a thing, because if they choose not to pay or choose not to do it, they basically can say you have to go back to another dialysis where you're paying more. And sometimes the patient says, or can I stop dialysis? So how do I handle that? It's hard for me to handle that. That's one of my difficulty. And I know that I can also understand the concept that because this dialysis center

really gives very good subsidies compared to the other private months, what happened is that you must, however, attend all your dialysis session. If you don't, it's a little bit of like you need to go there and consult it in. One of the challenges that you asked me that question, I felt was the duty. You know, our role of social worker

You've got a duty of care and duty of control To me duty of care It's actually more important than a duty of control At most it should be equalized But you cannot have duty of control higher than a duty of care Because if that's the case, that's not social work That's right

So that's where I felt my struggle But you stuck with it for six months which Yes, I did Incredible You know, I left in good note There's nothing really wrong It's just the whole system Sure, yeah

and when you started this role you were explaining to me it's such a significantly huge facility you've got 200 beds and they're not necessarily all filled at the same time but that's a lot of people for a very small social work team and you might have one of every disciplinary and even then if then let's say you have a visiting speech pathologist or whatever it might be these people are just pulled from pillar to post and yes you've probably got great teamwork within that, but the resources aren't there. So how do you keep on top of everything? Oh, this facility started only in January. So me and me first came, everything else came in.

It was a mad rush. And one of my difficulty is that I'm not very IT. No, I'm quite IT okay, but when it comes to Excel, I completely don't know all the function. I had to turn to her. And she works like so fast because she's being younger. Like now I was trying to catch up as her, like I just couldn't. You want to learn, but you could just turn around and say,

Nadra, please help, and it could be done in 10 seconds. Yes. Where's the incentive to learn? It's correct. So you'll ask her, how we go? I think I do acknowledge that because we are a smaller facility. But we do have a very good support with our acute hospitals around us. I think for one, because our rapport relationship that we built with them,

you know, like trust and over time you need to prove that, okay, can somehow live up to trying to manage our work here then they are the ones also that's that helped us a lot because for us at that point of time we we weren't sure of what we are able to do because for a transitional care facility for the social work department it's still building up so we didn't have like this proper guidance of okay what are we supposed to there's no really black and white but we had to navigate through and then we did help our doctors mainly here because we work very closely for our doctors, so our doctors actually know what to do next.

Or hey, if you are stuck here, you can discuss with me and let's go, let's move on. So one thing we have is the resources of the acute hospital social workers. They are, especially the ones in the east, they are super helpful and I tell you, they are aware that we are a small department and the resources might not, might be very limited, which is why the first thing when they came here, they were saying that please don't hesitate to reach out to us. And I think they really help us so much, right? Yeah, I mean, we had dealing problems, but it slowly resolved. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. She said something, you know, very key word in a lot of our role as a social worker. Relationship building is so, so, so important. Yeah. There's no relationship with our colleagues or with our stakeholders and patients. When families will never get work and done at all. Mm-hmm. So we have had good relationship with our directors,

that they kind of understood at the start and everything else with all the hospitals that we work with when we didn't have a lot of systems not in place yet when we didn't have AIC at all the site like you can contact we depended on them to update us all the time we did a lot of calling on the phone to talk to our patients, families and get updates but now it's getting easier because now we've got those systems

in place so we can also find out, we know where to go, and we can work out. We do have the community of TCF, social workers, we are all also building up. So the good thing I think that they acknowledge is that the TCFs, hey, the social works, they do need the support from other TCFs here. And technically we actually... So we're helping each other. Yeah, we are helping each other. But this was in overtime, you know. And then the point of time when it started, we were like, okay.

okay, there was like not much help for us to know what we'll do, you know, that. But I think... And also we are all trying to be consistent in practice. Yes, that's right. Okay, because we don't want other people to compare this you cannot do, they cannot do, then you go somewhere else and you lose your patience, and we're just trying to be all consistent, helping each other. So it's getting there.

You know, initially it's very hard, it's getting there. For me, it's even harder because the transition for me is that, you know, When I went to my interview, when I had an interview, they said, oh, what do you find challenging here? I see when social world is concerned, that should not be a challenge. But anything to do with Singapore, I'm sorry, that one is because I didn't know any schemes. I didn't know any, you know, you know, subsidies or those things. I know nothing. But that should be the easy stuff that you can become on the job.

Which is easiest, yeah, it's correct. Your foundation stuff that they want to make sure you've got. I neglected to let you mention what you do here, other than it's a 200-bed ward, it's a transitional care facility. I know what that means because I've worked in something similar What does that mean? For transitional care percentage

So in our stance here particularly for for us is that we are actually mainly for patients that's waiting for their longer placement So patients here They do need to be

Certain criteria mainly they need to be stable And once they go through the referral and make sure that you know The doctor's access Okay patient is fit For the criteria of our TCM

Then they are here mainly half of them is about waiting for nursing homes. Another half is actually waiting to go back home with the community. Yeah, foreign helper, the community services that we can help to assist in applying and also seeing whether they are suited to actually have that service. So nursing home placements, shelter home, welfare home, of course the main administrative box comes from the hospital. So by the time they come here, either the nursing homes has been applied or we assist together to help to apply for the medical report, for the social report or that. So they were coming up together then from there they sent in a referral.

But for another portion, I think we actually really work a lot more is when they actually go back to their own house. And I think for myself, the bug is when for patients that stay alone and they always feel that, oh, I'm independent. It's okay. I don't need like 60 plus, 70 plus but I can do everything for myself but we all sometimes know that you know some people might be afraid to ask for help and like hey you know that we do have these services do you think you might be keen

and that's when we come in to discuss with them like hey we do have these services for you like meals on wheels subsidized meal rate for patient who is the lower income we also do have day care services that is also subsidized by the government they have rehab centers and we can also have to watch this in the client

and travel hopefully yes So we do have all these selections in place that, let's just say if they do need transport, they do need escort, we can, we just apply through the portal. And then from there, there's when AIC, I think Brancy has shared with you. Yeah, our HR care assessment. Yeah, ACACAHC assessment team. So HK assessment team does all those assessments, right? It used to be called, things may change again.

The level 1, 2, 3, 4. Okay, down here they call it CAT 1, 2, 3, 4. cat three and four are the only ones that can go for nursing home yeah cat one and two can go for a nursing home except it has to do private nursing home which is very costly sure okay so that's how it goes but we have like nadra mentioned we have programs like daycare you can take two times a week or three times a big that helps with someone to reduce their caregiver stress or even home rehab now yeah we do have right we do have a home personal care. Even now, for people with dementia, they also have a kind of program to

stem stimulation or something like that. They can come out a bit more extra programs inside there. Yeah. Yeah. But again, user pay, you know, and also very much based on your means test too. But they also have things like you can have home personal care, but they also cannot have double dipping. You can get the subsidy for one. On different days, you can probably get subsidies but if it's on the same day you cannot have double dipping that sort of thing. I do think in Singapore context we strongly believe in you know everyone has their own accountability or at least paying something. You know it's not like a okay welfare state where okay everything's been given to you but yeah in Singapore context I do think that we really

encourage as long as someone is willing to fork out at least maybe just a few of like Like, for example, the same I mentioned to you, these meals on meals, right? The subsidy level is actually someone will need to pay what only for certain dollars. Actually, it's still mis-tested. Yeah, mis-tested. But I do think the range itself is like, hey, you know, we go through this format of having this mean system to make sure that, okay, everyone is equally given that subsidy so that, you know,

you don't need to pick unless you are going towards the destitute portion. Sure. But if not, I do think, personally I feel that, because I have been in Singapore for all, my life, I do think it's a reasonable amount to actually, they have the subsidy and that amount for them to pay. There is an organisation that if you really cannot meals on wheels, they do provide for it. There's another one, an organisation, but you know, it's less meals. So you can't determine what sort of diet you need and so for a lot of these places are like

that. Yeah. In saying this, I'm going to share this. In Australia, we, okay, the system between Singapore is not a welfare state. Australia is a welfare state I never knew this actually but actually Singapore despite the fact it's not a well-faced state

they actually have a lot of programs that provide services and assistance yes okay so even when we have many patients here who have no necks of kin we may not have mental capacity you don't have anything the government do support

financially and everything else through some schemes so even though we are not a welfare state it's not saying that they totally don't there may help. There is a safety net. There is. And you notice this,

we don't have beggars sleeping in here. So because we don't want anyone to be homeless, so homeless is not really, yes,

there is homeless people, but they will have a place to stay alternately. Okay? And if they are caught somewhere,

the police will probably win them in you know, and so forth. Okay? So, whereas Australia,

sometimes I think too much of welfare is also not good but how you can come out of that entrenchment is also very hard because it's really entrenched in there and it's hard to break it up because I also seen some abuses of too much welfare and sometimes I think abuses happen there even though they don't need help yeah yeah so post-in-conds okay yeah I can see that there's a real need as you were saying to have support and good relationships with the people who work in the hospital

the social workers and the other support providers. But I imagine then there's a lot of networking downstream as well. So you need to have relationships with nursing homes, with the ACTA equivalent, with all these other services, which is probably twice as much work because there are significantly more people on that larger scheme and things. So it's finding your tribe, I guess, finding your people that are the good people to keep in your circle

so that you have that two-way. and also if people become unwell on the ward, they have to go back to the hospital, so you need that communication. I tell you one of the things, okay, which is different on Australia again, we use a lot of WhatsApp. Oh, with colleagues or family members?

Yes, yes. Even on Sundays or Saturday, sometimes we get messages that come in, this person is discharged or what's happening to this? We don't know, you know, and so forth, there's a lot of communication going on. We also have communication on WhatsApp with our colleagues in all the different hospitals.

That's so great. Yeah. I mean, it means you probably can't switch off, but it's good to happen. But that's communication. And then sometimes when we cannot find certain people can get through to their phone, we're like, can we get so and so to call us? Yeah, yeah, that's so great. So that risk.

We use a lot of WhatsApp, we use a lot of video calling. I do think because for the TCF setting, right, everything is also quite fast-paced. Certain, as in, I would say at least half of it is quite fast-based in the, sense where you do need that reaction time you need to do it because by a certain date this person wants to be discharged and then what happens next does this person have the right resources you know at that point of time is a nursing home is everyone aware of it so I do believe that in the CSS I think the chain reaction it needs to be very fast but some that's the thing we I do think from

January as compared to now our how the way we process things also we do we do actually keep the boundaries saying that, hey, you know, that we don't usually work on weekends. So we do need to manage that how the way we actually portray it to our colleagues also not to, you know, at least our weekend. So maybe things that's not important can do it on a week. And a place here is still quite fast. You know, even though it's sub-acute, we also have to discharge people as fast as we can most of the time. Okay. Because we also must keep vacancies for hospitals to send us to us so if we don't discharge our patients out then the hospital will be like bed blocked again yeah so that's hopefully i'm not sure whether australia has this

thing like the nursing home whether there's any duration for them to be somewhere yeah so for here once the nursing home accepts you and then they have to go through an assessment is to date 10 days so within at 10 days this patient has to be transferred over her call it turn around time by then yeah by then everything must be, you know, must ensure that this patient is, can go to the nursing home, but that's when everything, you know, let's just say if we are not working and then we might miss up. I was like, oh. So you've got a grace period. Yeah, really. So they usually start off with needing to do either on-site assessment or video pro. Then we deal with this is part of our work. So we then tell our nursing style, hey, you know, they need an assessment. You know,

And so the nursing stuff can provide all the nursing input for the assessor. See, then they go back, then they might think they might need more wound charts, more wound pictures. They might want behavioural, behaviour, update and all the stuff. Then they review further and then if they see that their manpower can manage the case, then they'll assess. And if they think that the manpower cannot manage it, they will ask the AIC or the ACAD to withdraw. to withdraw and maybe another agency can accept it. Okay. Yeah.

Because I do think in the same home, there's also a lot of people there on the wait list. So by having this so-called timeline is also like, okay, everyone, you know, my 10 days, okay, next. But the next one who really needs it comes in, you know. I mean, for me, I don't think that 10 days is reasonable enough for someone to be transferred over. Yeah. There's a difference also. I think in Australia, again, I'm not sure for every state's a fluiser.

The nursing home is kind of more or less generic, right? Down here, there's also a psychiatric nursing home. Okay. And with a psychiatric nursing home, you must have a diagnosis of psychiatric. Sure. Yeah, and dementia as a classification of a dimension too. Yeah. So I think that's to basically provide the correct support to them. That's so good.

Yeah. In my experience in hospitals, the second there is a bed. available, off you go. So you as a social worker can be running around like a mad chook trying to get all the things that needed to happen in that 10-day period of time condensed into one or two days because all the hospital administrator needs to know is that there's a bed available. Yes, that's correct. Without the social context of this is actually what's happening, all that stuff in the background,

which I guess leads to how do you, I know you've only had less than a year to be able to demonstrate the way of working that works for you and all these things that you need to do as a department. How do you demonstrate that having these two social workers here is effective? I don't know if that's too big a question, but how do you show your worth and value in this setting? That's a good thing. I think so far, I don't think any of our hospital social workers or have made any complaints and asked. We conduct our discharges quite efficient. of that, we do have all these meetings also with our, it's called HHSOM, right? We have the first layer is the multi-disprating meeting.

Yeah, correct. So we discuss that with people like the allied health and your physical, because I said we don't have a bunch of OTP. Then it goes another level with the HHOM. Yeah. They like a representative for MOH. Okay. Because they report to MOH. Yes.

Okay. long stayer. Lange of state is extreme. They start telling us how we need to know what's going on and what's happening. And then they were either discussed with the AIC people or further and then give us some input and where to go from there. Professionally as social workers, initially there isn't any social work for TCF. Yeah. Then they started with us, I think, or I'm not sure. I think, each TCF, once it is built by HHGWMN site is approved, they have different settings of what needs to be and built with the TCF. So in TCF East, they need someone who is social work trade.

Yeah. Because I'm really sure, because before us, there is also TCF at West and also TCF at the central area. So to that, I mean, at that point of time, I don't think they find that a need because TCF is still going, right? So I do think when we came in, that's when they realized, hey, social worker might be in need and I think true enough I do think that like I said a certain population of them

we do need to guide them in the sense of social work but when I come back to your question about the effectiveness I do think it also plays whether effectively for the system or it's with us as professional and social workers because that doesn't show up in statistics correct no that's correct yeah so to them I think for system-wise as long as for us okay for the TCF facility is the reason of the transitional care facilities because there's a

length of stay here. Rightfully it's 30 days but this also can vary from time to time because the first time it just built here it wasn't 30 days but then it was three months then after that they went to speak to the board then after that they said as of now current is 30 days so how they value the effectiveness of us also is because like TCF is in general how able are you all you all can discharge patients by right that length of state but then again I think the effectiveness also might question me as a social worker is the numbers also versus myself whether my care for my patient is I think that's also the other area because I had this question

with one of my hospital colleague yeah prior they were doing just case managers so the case managers is just coordinating discharge like that yeah and there's no going down to the patient level and discussing more and more and doing your assessment. When we talk about psychosocial assessment, right, there's no general way to find out and using your knowledge and your practice wisdom as well as your perspective as a social worker, how to assess. These some of them are not trained that way. Sure.

Okay. So I remember when I had done with someone and I had the hospital social worker said, Is this patient still there? Why is it, you know, I put it in everything for you, you know, everything else, and why is it? And we brought up our assessment and our allied health assessment. He was quite happy. He said, wow, I never had that kind of experience with another agency, no longer working, no longer there. Okay, they don't have a social worker, but rather just a case manager, it's gone later.

Because you made that person a person. Yes. Correct. Yeah. So I do think in this context. as much as it's the discharge of the length of stay here. I do think being a person here, to me that's my effectiveness of how I am as a social worker. Because that's when I find that, hey, I am able to not just discharge you and that's it.

I feel that if I really go through you, because we do have certain cases that because of the curvil dynamics and they do not know how to navigate their challenges and we step in actually. But I do think that portion itself not many actually understand that we actually do it also. Yeah. And I think it was also a request by the hospital, the staff, the hospital social work department, wanting TCF to also have a social work. Yeah. They do not actually...

Because I remember when MOH said... Yeah, because they did, like I said previously just now, because initially the TCF, they do not need a potential work or it is not necessary, but after, I think, us, we are doing. us, we are the first one, okay, social work, you need to be here. Then that's when we realized when Bedouk was built, they have four social workers then. So, yeah, so the hospital social workers, when we first started, you were quite surprised. Yeah, we were social workers. Because they said, well, do you, how come we need, you know, how come the social workers? Because then they're questioning us and saying, what do you actually do, you know?

And that's a social worker here, you know, because then they wanted to know exactly what's the difference. Yeah, they did that So then I think now gradually I think the rest of TCF are having because we actually do provide services

a lot more other services that, right? Like some services we do provide as compared to other TCFs, they don't even do it but we open up

for a lot more cases we accept more different kind of cases no other TCF do like so it's that complexity that you can handle yes Yeah, I think like one of the things I shared with you just now is palliative, for example.

We do can accept some hospice patients with you. Not all the TCM we accept it. Yes. Yeah. But it's also to be fair, it's also, you asked me that time about manpower. Do we have a hospice doctor here? I think we don't have, but we are engaged with people. Yes, we do have this hospice centre that we can easily get in touch

because my awareness manager does have context with them. But so much of a consultative. Correct. But we do have in-house directician that comes in every week, psychiatrists. Yeah. And as of current now, there's a psychologist intern also that's coming in every week also to see the patients here. Maybe my patient. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's like the watch. That's one of the things here. That we do provide as compared to other places. But I say to be fair, it's also depending on whether it is here has certain equipment or certain specialists, specialty or specialist or ability.

So initially we had difficulty getting peritoneidiasis patients unless they can do it themselves. But then we not too long ago, we trained a few nurses to come to parietinidiasis. Yeah. Yeah. So we offer that. So yeah. We do have the opportunity to try to get all this in and we do have our doctors also that hey we can do this for our patients

one difference between community there's a different thing so you have the acute hospitals then you have the community hospitals yeah okay the community hospital is your rehab and then you have the the TCF yeah okay now the TCF the physiotherapist

and the occupational therapist is only a maintenance rehab it's not for active rehab community hospital is active rehab Yes. So that's a bit of difference. And as you were saying, if someone's waiting for a procedure, something like that, and then they've had the procedure, and then they can actively engage in rehab,

then they have to go to the community. Yeah, also sometimes, let's say they need to take some medication that needs to be supervised, like walk through it or something yet. They can come here until they finish the treatment antibiotics. So it's great that your nurses and a few other people you work with get that opportunity for ongoing education. Yes. You're working 44 hours a week.

Where do you fit in your opportunity to do any sort of continuous education? Now we have to do step by step because right now, not yet in. I think for myself, I do think I have the opportunity to... No. I need to share with my company about whether I able to... How can I develop my education and continuity, right? So they did offer me to actually link up with the hospital. then I can get my education there because at social workers in Singapore they encourage

you to be registered yeah so when you are registered meaning to say that you have you have to have a supervisor you have to clock in the number of hours and then once you are registered it's valid for two years but every two years you need to do the continuity of the practice which is also constitute a number of hours and education so for myself I think that I'm I'm more an associate is no no no actually because I I remember I shared with you that my years have experienced not really fully recognised here. They recognise Australia, not that, that I need to work for a certain period and years. Yes.

To be qualified as a supervisor. Yeah. Still need the supervision, still needs all those things. The problem is, as you can see, there's only two of us are not registered. She's not registered. There's no other people to supervise us. Yep. You know, we have a line supervisor who is not a social worker.

so you can't really tell you, help me with your job. Ethical issues. Yeah, your job issues, right, based on a social worker. And we don't have a professional development supervisor. Yeah, so that's one of the things. I think a lot of things still need to work it out because there is still not yet, no plans yet to create this ongoing learning development. In saying that it's not, management is quite good.

So if you want to attend something, you can still ask. Okay, and I know, no idea, but at the stage for myself, like I said, I feel like I'm semi-retired. Okay, and not sure what I want to do. Sure. Yeah. So, to me, it's just a name, okay? Registered or not registered, it's just, I can still do that job. Yeah.

And I don't think I really need to be bothered so much about, it sounds bad, but to get a title or, you know, just to concentrate on the work. Yeah, it's correct. Because all I want to do, and like, yeah. The other thing why I chose to be a social worker is because I want to pay it forward because I have also benefited from people who have cared and been kind and compassionate to me. Could you take students here? Is that something that you could take on?

We could, but we cannot in a moment because you still need your years or supervision. Yeah. Remember, even in Australia, the same thing, you need your years of supervision at least, right? In Australia, I can because I have done. That's the difference within us. Like, for me, I want to take that because that's my way of, continuing my education and getting myself. Yeah, I mean, if I was on Australia, yes, I've done it.

24 years, yeah. Yeah, I've done the supervision course, you know, I've done that back. So it's okay, because I would hear the system is also different. It's different. There's a, you know that when you reach, pardon you are wrong, because when you reach a retirement age, your contract has to be, you have to a yearly contract, yeah. It's a yearly contract.

Yeah, it's Singapore or retirement age. There's a retirement age. I never knew that before until I joined my first job. In my first job, I joined in. I never knew. And my parents are in their 70s and still working full time. Correct. My social workers are still in the 70s are still working, you know.

But down here, let's see, I think previously it was 62. Now I think they'd increase it. And after that, they basically, yeah. And that's why it is so difficult. There's ageism here because I never knew. They are so frightened of losing their young social workers. The younger social workers have a lot of how in their hands are, okay, because they are in demand.

But there's still a lot of social work jobs, but yet they're still looking for young ones and not really going for the more mature ones. And as you said, it's hard to get occupational therapists in this work. Yeah. If I do have any occupational therapists listening, come to Singapore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we have difficulty getting OTs.

Yeah. And we need OTs because there's a lot of people. things that OT does but for us because we only have one OT right now basically the focus is about equipment but we do have another suggestion like they can get appointments outpatient to the hospital so the occupation therapies from there will review them okay and then assess them and you can get so so there's some share yeah they're all good right now we can obviously get some yeah so that's what i did with one of my patients so knowing that he needs the device. So I go him, okay, let's just, I spoke to the social worker from hospital and that's when

we arranged. Ultimately, the patients here are their patients too. Yeah, that's correct. So they still have to monitor because we'll still come back to them and say, hey, you know, what's happening over that side? Yeah. So they do a lot of the main road, you know. Yeah. Similar to Australia, Singapore is a very multicultural country and from my understanding you have four sort of main groups do you find that difficult working in this setting in terms of having to be mindful and acknowledging different cultural expectations and those sorts of things as people move through health systems I think one thing about Singaporeans when we grew up here and we're very multi-cultural we invite people we we know each other's the culture itself quite well in anyways I don't think we are quite well in

ever since, you know, where we go to our primary school, secondary school, they somehow ingrained in us that, hey, this is how certain cultures are, and we celebrate. And even like those, like to you, the neighbourhood flats, right? They do have certain quotas for certain races for that. Yeah, wow. Yeah. So that's how they also try to encourage that, hey, you know, we have all this mean for races here, so that's how we need to be respectful. And if, coming back to your question, I do think that because we are ingrained, his dad, then...

It doesn't really make you think so much about what you do, and those. And then it's also very Asian. Any elderly person we see, is auntie, uncle, grandmother, grandfather, you know, it's just terms of respect.

Okay, or brother, sister, you know, that's how we do. But the one difficulty she and I would have, and we always then pass it on to our colleague. We both speak money. I do not know how to speak Chinese.

So my colleague who speaks Japanese, Whenever we had patients with Chinese speaking, who say, can you help us? Or, you know, or maybe she takes over the case. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't all ask and a session to speak in Chinese for us. Okay, the one thing is very interesting.

I also find it very interesting. In Australia, we use translators, right? Interpreters for any language and everything else. Here they don't. Okay. We know, you know, growing that you use our interpreters is very important because then it's known bias. And you can actually ask your nurses to help. or the family to actually interpret it

because they don't use their interpreters, yeah. Which could be less restrictive. Yeah, you guys are interesting. Making it really awkward, waiting for someone, having someone else, if that's all that's available. Yes. Yeah, there's a lot of problems in that way

because they've got so many Aboriginal language and there's not many Aboriginal interpreters. For sure. And even if there were, then you'd be worried about who knows who. Who knows, yes. Correct, correct, yeah. So it's just a lot of trust.

Trust to know that the information is Correct, but there are ways to bounce, Singapore, you can't lie, you know, everything. All our data, you know, all comes in one goal. I'm going to show you this, okay? Even to get, you know, our NIC is all in here. You can have all our ID in here, electronic, all in here, all buttoned. Will it tell me which bus I just talk?

No, no, okay. There are all this information, your personal, your personal, your education, your license, everything comes here and how much you have in your super it's all in here everything you talk about confidentiality in Australia in the past code to come into that sensitive yeah yeah area so and also in our system let's say when you get AIC and all stuff we have to basically use our corporate pass throughout that ID and scan it and you get in okay because that means everything you do whatever is is recorded yeah yeah but you It's very good and efficient, and I say this.

Yeah. Not like worse calling settling and wait for hours and others to just to get true. But I don't think there's a balance here. One part will say that it's convenient. The park will say that, hey, everything is just so easily available. But I mean that that's one thing our government actually does. Remind us time again, do not give anyone your pass so easily. Don't get scared.

None of the government people will call you and tell you, hey, I nick their up. So yeah. So this is really protected. So if you look at your phone, it's the first thing you to call them and tell them to remove everything to my account, yeah. I think what's, so my challenges for me, is really coming from, you know, like I said,

I feel like I'm half-sing Australian, half-Singaporean. I like some things about Australia very much and there are some things I struggle on Singapore concept of understanding. But one thing I must say about Singapore is there's a lot of foresight in the forward. planning. And the planning comes sometimes way ahead

of many years especially with the ageing population. I would say why TCF because it was initially built during the COVID time, right? And I think at that point of time they might have just used it for, I mean because at the time I also take my patients from

the COVID. TCF used to be an expo around for Chinese as well. So they use it as a COVID facility but it transited to hey, this patient after finish COVID and they don't have a place to stay. So I think that's when the government realized that, hey, because Singapore is an ageing population, we acknowledge that,

which is why TCF is built for it. And that's why, from one, it has currently now has six. In future, we don't not know what TCF will be, because it will go acquiring the need of the day. Sure. So if there's another pandemic, pandemic, or whatever, things like change again. So everything changes very fast.

But sounds like they listen, so you have an opportunity to help shape what I might think they do. I mean, the one thing for sure I found it hard here is a lot of stats, a lot of recording every month we have to input. Yeah, every month. Every month we have to give it to our horses higher up and then it goes up higher and it comes back again, the lang of stays. So there's all these input very important.

Well, that's good because we used to have to do the stats every month and I'm 100% sure no one looked at them. I'm 100% sure too that's why I cannot be born in some of those things yeah because you know your stats show that you're doing much more work than you're funded to do but does that make it true not so much

no and then I think that in Australia it's like you know they do this just based on the number of hours you work and then they give you it you know like that sort of thing well and did you do this thing or this thing yeah but it doesn't capture if I spend three hours doing that one thing it's not any less valuable than

doing 10 things. Correct. And they were always, you know, especially in health, right, they always talk about how much time

we spend in patient work. But then there's all the administrative work that's not, that's sometimes not counted. Yes. But we do a lot more in a patient work.

That's right. You know, like doing the centling forms can take, depends on which form can take some long time to do it.

What are the best things about this work? What do you love about this or being a social worker in general? Well, this is a good fit for me

because it's basically what I'm so familiar with I like the environment I like the team right now we are embarking on recently our volunteer program yep I mean

technically as social work that's part of our social work also to be to volunteer and so I do think not all TCF also offers this volunteer management so we do have organizations coming in to actually befriend the patients here so last week we just had two of them

doing the flute performance and they do have a befriended team also that comes here to engage with our patients performance for the patient so yeah fancy was at Australia so we our team our volunteer team actually did up a NDP dance for them

we had some students coming so it's going to see outside the PCF here there's a very huge because they just recently only renovated and cemented this whole rehab area for them to do their outdoor engagement so I don't think here as much as you know it's really

discharge plan this volunteer management also might somehow also help us to like hey yeah it's also interact with patients more than just that I don't know whether it's because my patients some of them are here like she's here since January February and I'm like you know we have all this that keeps them engaged and you see the other side of them you see that it's like that okay it's not just a case discussion it's a something that you're comfortable with you again it's to me again come back with the relationship

yeah I think that's what makes me happier yeah there's this relationship focus we try our best to even talk to our patients we talk sometimes go up there I've got one patient who I talk who tells me a lot of stories you know I'm born in the jungle

yeah you listen to their stories and build relationship I think there's we may not be able to go for everyone. Sometimes, most of them are bed down, most of them don't listen. But you might be the only person they talk to all day. That's correct. So to me, I think this is the few reasons why I feel like going that sector of social work.

I have made the right decision to do that because that's what I want to do in that professional setting of, hey, I'm a social worker and I can do this. Although I do acknowledge volunteer, befrienders who can do the same thing, but as a social worker itself, you can really help them, empower them and really try to walk with them and make sure that they also know that they are part of this whole, they change and

it's because of them. My patient said she did change for the better and to see her when she first came in as how she was very angry, there's so many emotions that she does not know how to do this but over time she was

so different and it's very interesting me because sometimes when the patients, I'm not saying for all, sometimes the patients come in and come from the hospital and says there's a lot of behavioural issues, but when they come in here, suddenly they are just... It's not that bad here, you know?

It didn't show being very bad or at this. Yeah, so... So I do have, like maybe this story to Shela, I do have my patient telling me that the social workers, like, she has, it's very transactional. But then when she came here and I really spoke to her

and really, for me, myself, of course we do our assessment, but I'm not sure maybe how do we accept to her or something, she tells me that, hey, it's not very transactional and I really appreciate you. And then I'm like, okay. That's something I think for me, that's just a very big win really. Yeah. Yeah, and I got one, like I shared just enough with my colleagues, the feeling of the emptiness of a person with intellectual disability, you feel like she's your member with your family and you want to care for them. And then, and then when I went to doubt, this I was going to go to Darwin and she basically cried.

And, you know, she really really cried when she heard I'm going for Dalwins. And I said, okay, then I came back. Then we managed to get her back home. But then when she realized she's going to back home, she also cried. You know, it's like suddenly she felt like the nurse and stuff and everything. And so it's like family. Then at all the time thought she was, because she had some intellectual disability, so maturity seemed to be like a kid like, right?

So, but then I realized she's actually older than me by a few years. So I tease her, I must call you, Jezezee. Chechette means big sister. And she laughed. You know, I said, Chechette? I said, no, no, no, you call me Chechette. I must call you, jeetre, you know? Then that, that kind of thing.

So I'm happy for her. She went back home. But, yeah, there's a little bit of this emptiness because they're working with them. So we all have our little experiences. Okay, we also have our little challenges with some people. you know you know I think it feels like a family like a community here that's basically like you know yeah I think a lot of people don't realize social workers we remember everyone we get to know everyone and we do actually and not that we treat them like family or that there's any

sort of other relationship there or when they walk out the door that we're going to catch up with them for lunch but they make an impression on us as much as we do on them yes and that's that heart place I think You see my former boss His name is Mory O'Connor

He's one of the people who's quite big into this community department and social enterprise And I work with At Community Living Program in Brisbane

He taught me one simple thing And he The whole of CLP Actually practice framework Is relationship focus And that's where I learned so much

That relationship is so important And that has become my practice framework But he said one thing for me I will never forget Because I would keep on saying at time Or we work for this We work for this person

We work for that Then he said to me You don't work for another person You work with another person And just that simple thing Has remained in my head You don't work for You work with

You work with your colleague You work with your patients And that's relationship Yeah So it's not transactional Which is I work for Sure I know you're coming

to the end of your career. But I'm kind of going to ask you the same question. If you had an opportunity to work in a different kind of social work setting, where might it be? And similarly, Nadra, this is only the start. Is there something else that you're interested in pursuing? Because of my time in Community Living Association in Brisbane, Nanda, I love that area. I love to work with people in intellectual disability.

and is this strange because when I tried to consider, you know, here, didn't get in. So I take it that way for me. I'm very much Christian, so I think it's not my pathway in a moment. I wonder if a volunteer role might be. Maybe in future. Maybe in future. Because hopefully there's not as much ages. Yeah.

I really like the area of community. I'm very much a believer of community development. I believe so much about community education and social enterprise. I haven't done much in that area but CLP had taught me a lot about using community and working on that, so kind of like that actually, yeah,

interesting when I was doing my degree, social work, I avoided doing health because I was so terrified of death and seeing coffins, okay, but I ended up the majority of my life, health, okay? I took disability and other things, I had out in health.

And I finally, the irony of it all was that when I was in Darwin, part of my orientation, the first thing my orientation was to go to the motuary. That was an interesting part, you know. No, I think going back to your question, maybe intellectual disability, and saying that, remember, I still have five years more to think, but now I'll go back to Australia. Yeah, right.

Yeah. So I haven't thought, yeah, we'll think about it. Who knows? That's my retirement job, maybe. Nice. Yeah. How about you? I love health care

That's why if you see me I don't deviate Because I know that health care is something that I love But maybe Adult Protection I like that setting also I think for me I have this soft side for

elderly patients I don't know why But I think that maybe I also strikes back to my late grandparents Yeah that support And so whenever I do have someone who's much older I think sub-caution is just also. So maybe with adult protection, I do have one before. And I find that this kind of

things, like for child protection, they also cannot speak and tell you that they need protection. There is a certain group of adults also. They don't do that. And especially when, you know, when you're adult and you don't even realize also you're being abused. Yeah. Yeah. So I do feel that if I'm not in this healthcare sector, I still would go through this adult protection to know that, you know, to help them. And I like personally to deal with adults. Yeah. Do you have something similar here like a guardianship or financial management order in Australia if someone is deemed to not have the capacity to make decisions?

Yes, yes, lasting power of attorney. So we do have it, just that... They're trying to promote it, but we're not yet. They don't have things like enduring power attorney or enduring power of guardianship, okay? So it's more when you get to crisis, no. Correct. They call it lasting power of attorney. Yes.

There is lasting power of attorney. the ACP also, advanced care planning. So what the government does is that they do encourage Singaporeans to do it knowing that we are going towards this ageing population and they even reach out to the neighbourhood areas of actually having it free of charge

hey come and we explain to you what's lasting power pertinity but like what you say now I mean the mental capacity sometimes it can get a bit big because from what I do know let's just say if this person has this lasting power paternity so

he's the donnie right because the donor accepted wanted him to be the LPA person if someone contested to it the certifying issuer who actually certified this LPA needs to go to court so yeah this is what is shared with my co-mates like they did share saying that the CI would need to be they're going to the court yeah so I don't think in Singapore when it comes to all this I did not legal legal ship and all they are very straight it's very straightforward black and white. Yeah.

So last few prior today, I did mine recently for my mother and everything else. So basically the government tried to give you free services to some else can do it for you. They only actually need to donate donies only. Okay, you don't have to say anything else. You just identify your main one and should your main one not be available or able to carry it out? Then your dony number two will take over. And basically they just can carry out your financial.

and your medical where it is, you know, the decision. You make that, but you still need it to get certified by a doctor or a league or a lawyer. And so that's how it is. People can still contest because the certifier who's doing it has to basically ask you questions

to test whether you do have mental capacity and make that decision at that point in time. So when they get to go to court if people can test it basically is for the doctor to basically say At that point at time I assess she or she has mental capacity I also decided recently to do my advanced health directive And I learned something I learned recently

There's a difference between advanced health directives in Singapore Apparently the advanced care care can only be done in the hospital The advanced health directors can be done with a doctor And the advanced health directive is simply to recess or not recess Okay, so basically I did that But the advanced care plan is done in the hospital, it's more like, for example, the comfort care level. Comfort care, parliation, or things like...

Or if this specific thing happens. Correct. I don't want dialysis or that's kind of stuff. Yeah. So that's basically it. It's a fascinating place. It is. And if you don't have an LPA, and this is where it can get very expensive. If you don't have any LPA here, you know, and suddenly the client doesn't have mental capacity

to make any LPA, then you need decisions to be made. You have to apply for deputieship. We call ourselves an adult guardians, right? Guardians and everything. Down here is called public guardians, but down here it's called professional deputieship. Professional deputieship. So, but this is the thing more on the American set of model.

I think Singapore follows a lot of American model. We tend to follow a lot of the American social work society. Yeah. when I was working in my first job when I came back, do you have bandwidth? I was saying, what do you mean by bandwidth? Didn't understand what bandwidth means? And I said, why do you mean by bandwidth?

You know, I said, are you talking about radio bandwidth? No, no, no. It's American terminology. It means do you have capacity. I never do that. Because I never bought, I was not in that era because we used this. Yeah.

I think I'd use it colloquially to say, I've had enough today. I have no further bandwidth. I didn't know I didn't know, I didn't I said it took me a while to understand what band with us

I agree with that too our working hours we could be better but not like Japan Japan is yeah

whole lot until I might as well put a crid in the corner and sleeping yeah it's a lot longer

so like in my other job also sometimes because everyone works and then when you want to meet any of

the family members you have to meet after they come home Sure. From work, you know. And then your work can time out, and then you might finish work at 10 o'clock. Then you take time off, like, yeah, basically it.

So, another cultural shock for me. Yeah. One thing I must ask you, do we have a sub-acute, like a transitional care? I mean, we have sub-acute as a rehab kind of thing, but do we have one? Because I know in Darwin we don't. We might have Tracy Village once, Tracy Care, like a step-down. Do we have? We do.

So in Sydney there are a few what we call TLUs, Transitional Living Units. Oh, yes, okay. But they're less so for people waiting for nursing home placements and then also for people coming out of rehab who need more time to practice daily tasks. Yeah, okay. So they're in a facility, which is usually very close to the rehab hospital. Yep, yep. Which is also very close to the main hospital.

So they've got the nursing and the medical still there if they need it. But it's much more of a you have your own independent space and you're expecting. to make your bed and have your shower and come to the communal kitchen and so the OT and the physio usually from the rehab facility will go into the TLU and provide those therapeutic services but part of being in that secondary environment is to try to as closely as possible replicate the home environment. Is there anything like to do it? Less so than here it's not as strict and someone can be in the TLU for up to six months if there's a purpose to to be there. And that is government funded.

Yeah, but what I think is lacking though, I mean, I'm not sure okay, because the other states are different from Darwin's side. Is there a very huge demand for nursing home and not enough supply? Yes. Yes, there is always more than that. So, so that means there are a lot patients still waiting in the hospital to get a bed. Yeah. And I think that's where the TCF would be an ideal thing in Australia because definitely that is a problem in Darwin. Absolutely. So people will end up staying in hospital or people will inappropriately go into residential care if perhaps they could have managed at home with support. But the funding wasn't there for the home support. And it's also very difficult because everything based on funding

in Australia, because sometimes you can go home, but there's not enough packages out there to support because it's all based on packages. And things have changed because we have our national disability insurance scheme now for people under 65 and the old system as much as people want to complain about the NDIS the old system the addict system age disability home care system I like the disability services by the way I really don't like NDIS I think it's a lot of uses in there was just so much in the old system waiting and waiting and I had so many people who were under 65 who had to go to a nursing home because there was a wait just to get assessed for under 65 supports. So there's no perfect system, but I like to hope that

people are learning and maybe making adjustments. I was actually quite sad when, you know, for when they got rid of the disability services and went to NDIS and then I didn't see much of improvement from that one. I think it also depends again going back to the flow on effect and your tribe who is helping with that flow through the system. So the hospital that I worked at had a very fortunate situation when we had one of our social workers who all her job was was to help the other social workers in the hospital with NDIS processes.

Yes. So that meant that the actual, from time to identify that someone might need services to them actually receiving them and being an early hospital was significantly condensed versus someone who's in the community who the health system can kind of forget. Yeah, correct. And also the other thing is they didn't make by the NDA is

that there are so many layers, you know? It's like you get assessed, then you get another assess, and by the time you get supports, I think there's a lot of research of resource money and things just because of the layers. And the decisions that are made in my experience are inconsistent. Yes, correct. Whereas in residential care with your age care assessment team,

it seems pretty consistent across the board, at least when I worked in health it was, is you can go in, I mean, you have to pitch an idea to a patient and a family. where you have to say, hey, I'm going to make a referral. Obviously, I need your consent, so I need your buying. I need you to understand this process and why I'm making this referral. You can say to someone, here is the time frame and here is what the outcome is likely going to be,

and you were almost 100% correct. Whereas with NDIS, the assessors sometimes aren't even in the room. They're assessing someone over the phone from a different state. So I feel like I need to be there as their support person to help them to advocate and to voice their concerns and identify what the issues are because they're not going to do that for themselves. Right, because some of the clients, they've only got disabilities or some,

they need us to help out. Sometimes they do not know what to say. Yeah. You're not sure how to put it. And you go through a process with someone who has a brain injury to get any sort of NDIS support and at the end of the day they say, well, you can have, what is it, $20 a week to put towards transport. Yeah.

And my guy will say, me down to the pub. Yeah, it's all these things that they, no, they will not speak to you unless you're the person. So it's so hard because sometimes the person, like you said, they've got brain injury. How are they going to answer? Yeah. They can't do anything. Even if they had the confidence, they might not know what to say.

Do you get a chance in amongst your crazy work hours to read, to listen to things, to watch things that are in any way social work related or help your work? At the moment, though, because, you know, for me, coming back, you know, our work hours is actually very long. So by the time you come back, it's quite tiring. Or rather, you know, like, having dinner so late, you know. Like, sometimes we can thankfully some, I think we went for one. I think anything, but it depends. Some of the hospitals invite us to do online.

I mean, for myself, I do have time. Well, because I wake up in love. So that's how I... She drives. And on top of that, I feel that I try to manage my time very well. That's me, that's how I work. So I do try to go for also social work. That's coming up actually for hospital.

They are doing for homeless. They are actually having a conference for it. And there's also another one for the new hope shelter. I'll be going down to the transit at you Chukang. Because they do have this social work department and they do know that, you know, not everyone knows what they are doing. So I go try to make myself available for it And if it's weekend and I'll just do it

But for me that's how I I like to study I mean this is maybe also because as a very So you have to keep current and you have to Medicine that kind of thing So that's how very similar So in a social setting I think for me I like that

Yeah correct Whereas you might just need to switch off Yeah I need to switch off I'm still paying which I haven't been using For a long long time I'm just paying empty money for the Mental Health Academy that one. Oh, yeah. You know, I thought some of the things, they are quite good.

I was still, you can't say to myself, I still need to go, and I'm, why am I paying? So all the time, but I still feel hard to withdraw. Okay, so not yet. I haven't decided yet. But in terms of money, right, if I'm wasting money all the time, that I got. It's like going to the gym. Yeah. I'm paying for the gym.

I should go to the gym. Yes, correct. And then ASW, this year I didn't join them. because I wasn't sure, because I was not really benefiting it so much. But I like that focus magazines, actually. Yeah. I think that's about all. I haven't been taking, I know I was a member.

I'm a bit lazy. I haven't been taking all their points to get accreditation or whatever. Some people just, they read so widely or they watch. I just, yeah, I don't know how they find the energy to do it. No, I don't have the energy to do it. I mean, in Australia, probably more time to be able to be. Down here, it's hard. Because by the time I go home, take the bus, and I finish day, you know.

Then I'm just too tired to come, to do. I just want to unwind. I want to unwind by reading things again. And then the fact is that all the time my eyes are on the screen. I got this dry eye syndrome that sometimes it just go blur. You know, and that's basically it. Yeah. Not a good answer because actually, you know, you need to keep on going about it,

about all this online. There isn't a right-hands. Yeah, everyone gets through to be challenging work. Right now, yeah, I'm kind of 70-retirement mode. I'm like, it's okay. I'm not going to go for any higher positions. Yeah.

Because in the end, being an only child, I might end up being a caregiver from my parents. I've got one. It's 19 years old, another one. And my mother, you know, 801 with cancer, and she's got all the signs of dementia. But she's denying everything. And I'm trying to get there with a helper.

Sometimes it's harder to be in the system. Correct. Correct. I know more. And you can't get a helper. Now here's this role. You can't get a helper as, you know, if you are being diagnosed with having no capacity to make decision. That's the Ministry of Empower rule.

So I told my mom, you need to do it now because my step back 19 in January now has capacity to make decision and everything else. But once you're at age 90, things can happen very fast. Sure. So that's my challenge right now. That's enough to focus on. Yeah, it is enough. I'm so incredibly grateful to both of you for spending the time doing this, to meet with me, to show me around your wonderful facility.

It's fascinating hearing about the differences and also some of the similarities as we're going through. So, yeah, thank you for helping behind you. Of course. So I've taught that you, to meet your trip really, to have at least a single person, I'm so glad. Yeah. So glad you were both able to join me. Yeah.

You know, to share from her point because she's been here and so out, and I'm not here. I'm already a bit here already. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thank you again so much. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for joining me this week.

If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Francine and Nadra, please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Blue Sky, or you can email SW Spotlight Podcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Next episode's guest is Noor, currently serving at a government hospital in Malaysia, working closely with patients and families, especially in cases involving child protection, sexual health awareness,

emotional trauma, and family dynamics. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you'll notified when this next episode is available. See you then.