Launch of the National Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy

Opening Remarks by Mr Alvin Tan, Minister of State, Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth & Ministry of Trade and Industry, at the Launch of the National Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy on 5 October 2023

1. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the press conference.
2. We have seen that mental health and well-being issues are not unique to Singapore; it is a challenge that is afflicting many parts of the world as lifestyles and pressures of everyday work come into play.
3. What you see today is a coordinated strategy across many different players: from the healthcare sector to the social sector, to schools, to workplaces, and also to the community. I think this is where Singapore is strong, because we are able to coordinate across different sectors and segments.
4. My colleagues and I have mentioned the same phrases: peer supporters, destigmatising, raising awareness, and strengthening capabilities. This is because these are cross-cutting across all the agencies.
5. My focus today will be on the communications and efforts in the community.

Strengthening mental health communications and engagement

6. It is not just about healthcare, but it is also ensuring that there is care across the different tiers – from healthcare all the way to the community – so that those who need help and those who want to also afford help are able to do so in a concerted manner.
7. One way to do so, and one way to raise awareness and destigmatise mental well-being and mental health, is through communications.
8. As everybody is doing many different things, we want to do better in communications. One of the ways that we plan to do so is to launch a communications toolkit. This is something which will be developed in consultation with our partners.
9. The communications toolkit will have four different segments – parents, teachers, working adults, and youth – to help everyone understand the different areas where you can seek help and also provide help. This is to better strengthen and coordinate communication.

Increasing mental well-being efforts in the general community

10. The second part is on community.
11. Many of you might know that during the height of COVID-19, the youths themselves rallied together, and they set up the Youth Mental Well-Being Network. It comprised about 1,500 youths.
12. But we all know that mental health and well-being issues do not only afflict youths, nor do they only concern our youths. It is something which all of us, in certain forms, face. Therefore, last July we expanded the Youth Mental Well- Being Network to the SG Mental Well-Being Network.
13. Within this Network we have a variety of different partners who are very passionate about mental well-being. They are trained in handling mental well- being issues, and also have been in this space for many years. They are our social sector organisations, the Health Promotion Board, the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) , and Institute of Mental Health (IMH). We also have new ground-ups, and different youth sector organisations that have joined SG Mental Well-Being Network. I will give you a few examples. We have Calm Collective, Campus PSY, Limitless, Happiness Initiative, Growthbeans – or Growth Collective as a whole – Mental ACT, and many others in this space.
14. In fact, the Network organises Partners’ Networking Nights rather often, where they come together to exchange best practices, to also link and network so that the community has more access paths into what they are doing, and they can also do more in the community.
15. Now, one of the key deliverables of the SG Mental Well-Being Network is what we call the Well-Being Circles. They are in-situ in the community, and this allows us in the community, together with these partners from the Network, to do three things:
1. First, to raise awareness and destigmatise.
2. Second, to provide safe spaces and platforms for different groups to share their struggles, and to share best practices.
3. Third, and this is most important because it is also tied in with the National Competency and Training Framework, is to train peer supporters, and also to train individuals to help one another; to bolster their own strength and their own mental health and mental well-being.
16. Thus far, we have six Well-Being Circles. They are in Kolam Ayer, Bukit Batok East, Punggol West, Zhenghua, The Red Box near *SCAPE, as well as in my own constituency, Moulmein-Cairnhill. We will be also setting up three more of these Well-Being Circles in Yuhua, Cheng San-Seletar, and Nee Soon South.
17. We have already trained about 500 citizens and have partnered over 30 organisations.

Conclusion

18. If you look at what we are doing in concert across all of the different segments, across healthcare, the social sector, schools, and workplaces, the community indeed forms a very strong and important segment which we have been focusing on.
19. Thank you all very much.