Counselling
We provide counselling to patients and their loved ones to help support them in coping with the impact of their medical condition and the resultant life changes.
Care Arrangement and Discharge Planning
We assist patients who present with complex psychosocial and discharge-planning needs, as well as conduct timely assessment and interventions to help patients and / or families cope with personal, emotional and bio-psycho-social issues affecting hospitalisation and the delivery of care, through appropriate linkages with community resources and supportive counselling.
Financial Assistance
We assess and administer financial assistance for patients or families who have difficulties affording their medical bills. While doing so, we also aim to make the financial assistance schemes more accessible to patients.
Crisis Intervention
Psychosocial assessment, counselling support, as well as practical assistance are provided to patients who may be admitted under the circumstances of a crisis. This includes patients who experience family violence, sexual assault, self-harm or suicide attempts, abuse and / or neglect, amongst others.
Education, Teaching and Networking
We are involved in providing clinical supervision to social work students from NUS and are also actively engaged in inter-professional teaching to the medical students from the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine through lectures, talks and patient experience attachments. We are also involved in the national Medical Social Work (MSW) Chapter training, as well as regional workgroups with government and voluntary organisations.
Support Groups
The Department runs group work to further provide educational and emotional support to specific groups of patients and their loved ones.
- Cardiac Rehabilitation Programme: The Cardiac Rehabilitation Programme is run by the multidisciplinary team at National University Heart Centre, Singapore (NUHCS) with the aim of supporting cardiac patients through their recovery process. Our MSW team facilitates a psycho-education talk and support group session for the cardiac patients, providing a platform of learning and mutual sharing.
- Empowered Living (HIV Support Group): Empowered Living is a joint psycho-education programme by the Medical Social Services Department at SGH and the Department of Medical Social Work at NUH. The programme serves as a safe platform for group sharing, and provides psycho-education on nutrition, sexual health and other issues.
- 'Incredible Years' Parents Support Programme: The Incredible Years Parenting programme is an evidence-based treatment programme for families with children with behavioural issues and defiant disorder. It focuses on strengthening parents' competence and building positive parent-child relationship. It aims to:
- Equip parents with strategies to work with young children and their behavioural issues
- Promote their social, emotional and academic competence
- Foster mutual support among parents
- Kids Connect: Kids Connect is a holiday support programme targeted at children (7 to 12 years old) whose parents or loved ones are impacted by cancer. The group sessions, which comprise play and other creative activities, aim to help children moderate their feelings by providing avenues to express these feelings and explore strategies to cope with them.
- Rheumatology Support Group: This patient support group provides a platform for patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis to network and support each other. Together with the other members of the multi-disciplinary team from the Rheumatology clinic, patients share and learn how to manage and overcome day-to-day challenges that they face as they cope with their unique condition.
CARE System (Caring Action in Response to Emergency)
The Department heads and coordinates the hospital's psychological response through its CARE teams during national emergencies and incidents of mass casualty.
Besides Medical Social Workers, staff members from other departments receive our training and form part of the CARE team. In times of crisis, there will be extensive CARE coverage at the Emergency Medicine Department, Relative Holding Area, and strategic locations for us to reach out to those who are affected.
Hospital Peer Support Programme - CARE buddies
The Department pioneered and continues to champion the hospital's peer support programme for staff.
The NUH CARE Buddies Programme seeks to provide recognised training to staff, to equip them to provide psychological support to peers when faced with critical incidents, stress, personal events, and burnout. Currently, all wards and outpatient areas have set up CARE Buddies Teams. More than 500 staff, who are interested in this support programme, have obtained an internationally recognised certification.