Whispering Hearts Family Service Centre (Club Fidentia)

In vein with achieving the objectives, the program engages a two-pronged approach.

First of which is the creation of Peer Circle. Peer Circle is a Study Partner Program that deals with youths who are in need of academic and emotional support. In a conducive environment, youths are given the opportunity to learn from an adult mentor within a group. The adult mentor would not only coach them in their academic work but also an avenue for them to be in engage in other relevant issues/interests beyond the syllabus. Lessons (such as movie reviews, creative writing or presentation skills workshops) would be transmitted through engaging mediums. It is essential that the Study Partner Program covers beyond tutoring of academic work. Ideally, it should differentiate as an environment where youth are also exposed to new information/ knowledge which could inspire and/or be of use for their future.

The other distinctive arm of Peer Circle is formal on-site mentoring by trained mentors. According to the leading mentoring agency, Big Brother Big Sisters Australia, mentoring is crucial because it ‘aims to provide a structured and trusting relationship that brings young people together with caring individuals who offer guidance, support and encouragement aimed at developing the competence and character of the mentee.’ More often than not, adolescence is often is in a period of loosening home ties, trying new roles and learning to be independent. In this transition, it would be valuable if there is the presence of trusted adults to whom the youth can relate to for guidance. This is especially valuable for low-income youths- having an older brother or sister who cares could act as positive inspiration.

The trained mentors are volunteers from Nanyang Technological University, junior colleges and working adults. The volunteers will attend at least 2 trainings on session/ class management- (1)working with youth and (2)proper mentoring structure.

The second of the two is Youth Inc. Youth Inc is a component that focuses intensively on equipping youths with life skills through Socio-emotional Learning. Life skills comprise the majority of competencies within the personal and social assets; and these competencies require opportunities for learning. Besides imparting life skills, it is conduit for youth to be able to given the opportunities to practice as well as to pay back with meaningful contribution to their families, schools, peer groups and communities (through community service such as service learning projects). It is essential that community service be properly conducted at early level of schooling and continues throughout the years so as to create a climate for community service for a lifetime (Elias, 2003).

Under the umbrella of Youth Inc., a Youth Committee would be established. Youth would be given a fair amount of autonomy to ‘run’ the Club Fidentia. This is to instill in them a sense of ownership and to give them the freedom to plan and organize in a safe environment- to develop and practice life skills taught. Consequently, this is also done with the hope it could increase their self-image and self-worth. At the end of the program, it is aimed that youths would be given the prospect to learn, apply and contribute skills acquired in their lifetime.

In essence, with the two-pronged approach in hand, we hope to empower our youth in becoming responsible and contributing citizens- who are given the opportunities to develop their character to the fullest potential.

Delivery process

Seminar/discussion format as well as experiential learning through indoor/outdoor activities.

Programme structure

Theoretical Underpinnings/ Research

The Ecological model holds the view that the person is embedded within an intricate system of relations. The systems theory shifts attention from the cause-and-effect relationship of the person and the environment to the person as an interrelated whole (Compton & Galway 1999). The notion of transactional causality is emphasized; every part of a system is affected by every other part. The intricate relationship among systems implies that a person’s life event would be affected by environment demands, internal demands, environment supports as well as individual’s coping or adaptive abilities. A problem arises when ‘there is no good fit between the individual’s coping abilities and the demands of the environment or between the desires and the support of the environment.’ As suggested by Germain & Gitterman (cited by Compton & Galaway 1999), individuals fail in their life transitions because of their maladaptive interpersonal processes relating to individual’s coping ability or/and the excessive demands or inadequate support from the environment. Hence, to prevent youths from failing in the various aspects of life, Club Fidentia’s programs aim to increase youth’s environmental support as well as to enhance each of their coping abilities.

With social capital weakening in urban societies, youths who lack significant adults in their lives are especially vulnerable to delinquency and marginalization. Youth mentoring is an effective solution for developing resilience in youth population and its efficacy has been well-documented. According to a study by Big Brother Big Sister, Mentoring: A Synthesis of P/PV’s Research: 1988-1985 showed that mentoring had positive impact on youth. The results shown that young person with a mentor were 46 percent less likely than control group to initiate drug use, 27 percent of them less likely to initiate alcohol use, one-third less likely to hit someone and skipped half as many days of school as control youth. In addition, they feel more competent about their ability to do well in school and reported having positive relationships with their parents and friends (Big Brothers Big Sisters, 2007). Social learning theory posits that individual learn as a result of involvement with others, hence providing a successful adult mentor provide an opportunity for youth to model successful collegiate behaviours and also serve as a valuable opportunity to observe successful other young persons. This is especially useful for adolescence who are at a stage where they venture out of their homes for independence.

Peer Circle is constructed in the hope that youths would be able to garner positive environmental support from adult mentors and professional staffs as well as the positive friendships formed in the program. Program staffs had a role of providing support in the form of screening, orientation and training, and support and supervision to ensure the quality of mentoring provided. This is done with the objective of strengthening their environmental support.

One the other side, Youth Inc. focuses strongly on imparting youths with life skills- to enhance youths’ coping abilities. Socio-emotional learning is a way of teaching and organizing that help children to learn a set of skills to help manage life tasks such as learning, forming relationships and communicating effectively. A study by Curtin University, Academic and socio-emotional learning by Maurice J. Elias states that socio-emotional learning is ‘a missing piece’. It represents a part of education that links academic knowledge with specific set of skills important for success. There is a danger that children grow up with knowledge but without socio-emotional skills and a strong moral compass (Elias, 2003). Hence, the program wants to provide support and opportunities for youths to develop these personal and social assets; in order that they can marry both academic knowledge and skills to have a productive and satisfying life.

Strengths perspective suggests that empowerment is significant in encouraging youth to discover their strengths and enhance their self-determination and autonomy (Herriger, 2002). Through social-emotional learning, youths would have the ability to organize, direct their own lives and to provide resources for their self-determination and independence. As a team, we want to nurture a vision that focuses on resiliencies rather the deficits. Hence we intend to provide leadership opportunities for our youths, giving them prospects of taking charge- in hope that their participation would boost their self-esteem and self-image. Low-income youths often need encouragement from the community that they too are worthy and had the ability to be like any other average youth.

Specific problems that the programme addresses

Our underlying belief that form the basic of this program is the belief that each youth in a unique individual with many various strengths- both known or not yet known to the individual. For this reason it is our goal that youth who enters our program would leave discovering more about their strengths and carry with them the belief that they are a capable and distinctive young person; despite their environmental circumstances. One of the major tasks of this program is to allow the youth to see beyond their individual selves. Our work with youths made us realize that most of them lack the global perspective and a vision beyond the community they lived in. Youths are often too consumed with their self and plights, hence not able to discover that they are resourceful people who have the ability to contribute to others. Also, most of them lack life skills training or an environment for skills to be practiced. In addition, most of the youths lived in low-income families whose parents are relatively less able to guide them in their academic studies and offer them career guidance, hence Peer Circle serve to complement by providing academic and inspirational support. Lastly, there is lack of facilities in the community that our youths can tap on to develop their interests and develop positive friendships. Hence, we want to make available a safe outlet for them to mingle and develop positive bonds while strengthening their selves.

Evidence of Community Need for the Programme/ Rationale for Switching Primary PDPs

Reasons for modification of the programme

Club Fidentia was set up in 2006. After a year’s operation, the program staffs evaluated the program and realized that there are some mismatches and gaps between the needs of the clientele and the services delivered. Our initial hypothesis of our target clientele is students who either have difficulty staying in school or for youths who had dropped out of school, hence we propose an entrepreneurial enrichment component- to harness their talent and to learn new skills for future survival. However the demography of our members varied a fair bit from our initial hypothesis, majority of our members are youth in school and had a higher possibility of staying in school throughout the secondary years. Hence we decided to replace entrepreneurial enrichment component with social-emotional learning which is relatively more relevant for school-going youths.

Also, we also added a new component to complement the study partner program- on-site mentoring. In our first year of operations, there was informing mentoring happening between volunteers and youths. Most of our youths are attached and had strong bonds forged with the volunteers. For accountability, it is essential to formalize our mentoring because it is crucial to monitor and supervise, to ensure the quality of mentoring offered to the youths as well as for safety reasons.

There is no disruption for currents members of Club Fidentia. They would move on to the new programs as the target audience still remains the same. As mentioned above, this program is altered to better meet the needs of our current clientele.

Outcome of environmental scan

In the boundary that we served, the only youth organisations available besides Club Fidentia is Nanyang CC youth group, Boon Lay CC Youth Group and Jurong Town CC youth group. Although there are existing youth groups present, they are more generic as compared to our program. They focused more on activity-based activities and their age requirements ranges from 13-35 years of old. Hence, Club Fidentia differentiates because we focuses specifically on a target group of low-income youth age 13-18. Nevertheless, we could collaborate with them by tapping on their resources for various activities.

Needs Assessment

It is essential for a service provider to deliver services that meet the demands of the service users. It is hence crucial that a needs assessment precedes the development of programs. With the data collected, program staffs are then better able to gauge whether the program proposed is feasible. A needs assessment (refer to appendix B) was conducted in August to September 2007 to examine the needs of the youth being served in conjunction with the program goals and objectives.

We administered a survey to 315 youths within our boundary. Our target group are both clients from our centre’s program- Club Fidentia and Bright Owl Project as well as students from neighbouring primary and secondary schools. Primary six students are roped in because they are potential candidates to be enlisted to our program next year (when they promote to secondary one). 91.4% of all of youth reported that life skills are essential. 67.7% of youth claimed that they have not attended life skills courses before. Out of the 67.7% of youth, 71.48% of them expressed interests in attending life skills courses. Of the choices given, the highest percentages chosen for the component of life skills are conflict resolution skills, leadership skills, stress management skills, social skills as well as problem solving skills. The studies above showed that that there is an emerging need by youths for life skills courses.

In relation to adult mentoring, 78.1% of youths and 68.57% of youths claimed that they did not have an older adult they can looked up to in regards to academic/career aspiration as well as relationship problems respectively. On the other hand, only 28.25% and 19.37% of the youths claimed that they did not have an older adult in regards to personal issues and school work. Hence, it is impetus that our group mentoring be focused on providing academic/aspiration and relationship support. In addition, the youths reported that they face difficulties in communication, goal setting as well as academic work in their lives.

Lastly, the survey questions address the issue of community service. Most of the youths (76.51%) claimed that they participate in community service because of self-satisfaction purposes. This is a very encouraging trend, and should be tapped on so that the spirit of community service would last for their lifetime. More than 80% of the youths had indicated that they are ‘somewhat-interested’ to ‘very interested’ in participating in community service projects. Of all, only 1.27% of the youths had joined an overseas community project, of those who did not, 83.81% expressed high interest in participating in an overseas community project. Participating in community services projects especially overseas projects could have a strong impact of youth. Service experiences usually help youth to encounter other people, ideas and circumstances in ways that broaden their sense of perspective and build empathic understanding and caring connection to the world around them (Elias, 2003).

Consultation with community partners

Club Fidentia work closely with schools within the boundary. As schools focus more on academic support, there are less able to provide social-emotional learning courses. Hence, schools would collaborate with us by referring their students for our programs and provide us with feedback on the needs of the students.