SINGAPORE \u2013 While transferring her 13-year-old daughter, Sarah, who has multiple disabilities and is unable to walk or talk, from her bed to a chair at home, Madam Jasmine Lee fell.<\/p>\n
The 2025 accident resulted in Sarah breaking her left femur, leaving Madam Lee, 41, overwhelmed with guilt.<\/p>\n
The mother of two had lost her balance as she was not used to the teen\u2019s growing weight, yet she could not help but feel the fall was preventable.<\/p>\n
After she shared this in a group chat with fellow caregivers of people with special needs, reassuring messages flooded in: \u201cHey, it\u2019s not your fault\u201d, \u201cI\u2019ve had similar experiences too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCompared to (hearing from) someone who doesn\u2019t have a special needs kid, it is a lot more assuring because they have been through that journey. They know how it is really like,\u201d said Madam Lee, who also has a 15-year-old son.<\/p>\n
This \u201cmagic\u201d of peer support is what Dr Lim Hong Huay, founder of CaringSG \u2013 a non-profit supporting caregivers<\/span><\/a> of special needs children and people with disabilities (PWDs) \u2013 hopes more caregivers can experience.<\/p>\n Dr Lim Hong Huay, founder of CaringSG, hopes to strengthen peer support among parents of special needs children.<\/p>\n ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Within the next three years, CaringSG aims to form support networks among parents of special needs children in 10 schools, connect them to community resources and train them in caregiving skills.<\/p>\n Its Parent Peer Support programme, launched in April with the Ministry of Education, brings structure to current support groups in schools, which Dr Lim said are largely informal and may not be well-resourced.<\/p>\n The programme was recently awarded the Income OrangeAid Caregiver Support Accelerator Grant, which funded the caregiver initiatives of 10 social service agencies.<\/p>\n Income OrangeAid is Income Insurance\u2019s community development platform. The insurer and the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) announced the first grant call awardees on March 10.<\/p>\n With a second grant call tentatively planned for 2027, the <\/span><\/a>$10 million<\/span><\/a> grant aims to support up to 20 caregiver programmes<\/span><\/a> run by social service agencies.<\/p>\n Several grantees told The Straits Times that there are currently few avenues of funding for caregiver-focused programmes. <\/p>\n Schemes such as the Home Caregiving Grant and Caregivers Training Grant aim to alleviate caregiving expenses, or train caregivers to look after their loved ones. However, they do not focus on the caregivers\u2019 own well-being.<\/p>\n Yet, their needs are immense. <\/p>\n Ms June Sim, who heads TOUCH Community Services\u2019 Caregivers Support Group, said: \u201cThere are sacrifices that (caregivers) make, emotions that they have to manage, guilt or grief, and they have to do it on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n NCSS\u2019 2024 Quality of Life Study found that caregivers in Singapore had a lower quality of life than non-caregivers, in both physical health and social relationships.<\/p>\n Income Insurance chief executive Andrew Yeo said caregivers are essential to families and communities, but their needs are often overlooked.<\/p>\n He noted that many caregiver initiatives tend to be short-term and focus mainly on care recipients. The grant plugs this gap by giving multi-year funding for long-term programmes, he said.<\/p>\n<\/picture><\/div>