MARYMOUNT CENTRE LAUNCHES NEW SERVICE – PILOT SMALL GROUP CARE – IN SINGAPORE

Marymount Centre (MC), the social service arm of Good Shepherd Sisters in Singapore, has been quietly but stoically living out its vision of “Touching Lives, Building Hope”, fulfilling Good Shepherd Position on the Girl Child.

In 2016, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) accepted MC’s proposal to fill a gap in service to the girl child through a Pilot Small Group Care (PSGC), which will provide mid-term care to girls aged 7 to 12 years who have higher needs.  We are excited, yet humbled that we are ready to receive the first girl child into PSGC on 01 Jun 2017.

PSGC will complete the continuum of our residential care service under the Ahuva Good Shepherd theme. Currently, Ahuva Good Shepherd – Children’s Home provides long-term care to girls aged 4 to 16 years, whose families are facing challenges, such as marital discord, domestic violence and parent’s incarceration, while Ahuva Good Shepherd – Interim Placement and Assessment Centre (IPAC) serves children who enter the MSF Child Protection Services due to abuse or neglect, loss or incarceration of parents, abandonment or experiencing breakdown in their current care arrangements. IPAC provides a temporary safe environment for these children while social investigations and assessments are carried out to determine their future care arrangements. During their short-term stay, usually between one and thirty days, we provide casework services and conduct structured programmes for the children whose age ranges from 4 to 12 years. We work closely with MSF Child Protection Services to assess the care needs and critical emotional and behavioral issues of the children to better inform placement decisions. We help to facilitate the children’s transition to longer-term placements such as with next-of-kin, foster family or in children’s homes.

Marymount Centre has been blessed with staff who are dedicated and committed to the care of these girls. Sometimes staff are tested to the limits by the girls who are often unaware of their heightened state of anxiety and pain caused by the stresses and trauma they have been through. What keeps the staff patiently striving to sit through the storms with the girls is their belief in our Good Shepherd ethos and charism and living out what St Mary Euphrasia has passed on to us, for example, “It is not enough that you love them, they must know that you love them.”