As we begin another financial year (FY) 2006, we want to thank all our SFE partners for a meaningful FY 2005. Todate, we have reached out to more than 400,000 people with life-enriching family life programmes.
As you may know, the Academy of Principals (Singapore), with the support by the MCYS, organised a public seminar on 'Speaking of Boys: Answers to the Most-Asked Questions about Raising Sons' to about 380 participants on Sunday, 26 March 2006. On 28 March, a workshop was also held for more than 40 educators. Dr Michael Thompson gave us insights into the emotional world of boys and how to nurture and relate to them. Visit the SFE website under 'SFE News Flash' http://fcd.ecitizen.gov.sg/SchoolFamilyEducation/SFENewsFlash/ to find out how you can bring out the best in the boys in your family and school....
Utilisation of SFE Funds to Purchase Family Resource Materials for Family Life Centre/ Corner
Many schools which have completed the 100 hours of family life education programmes and have leftover funds have asked if they could purchase books and videos on family for the family life centre/ corner. We have decided that schools that have completed the 100 hours of family life education programmes should be allowed to use the leftover funds for this purpose, at a cap of $1,000. However, please ensure that only family resource materials are purchased. Counselling or academic materials are not supported.
End-of-Year Reports
Beginning April 2006, Wellern International will send out the end-of-year reports to every school. Do revert to Wellern for any changes in the reports or suggestions on how to improve the programmes.
SFE Best Practices
We are delighted to see more and more schools finding creative ways to implement parenting programmes. As such, we would like to share some schools' best practices.
(a) Meet-the-Parents Sessions/ Family Day
Many schools organise family life education talks to reach out to the parents during the Meet-the-Parents session, Parent Orientation for new students and Family Day as these are ocassions where there is large catchment of parents. We encourage schools to engage family life education speakers to deliver talks/ workshops/ activities to the parents. School principals who are eloquent and experienced in talking about family life issues may also share parenting/ marriage/ family values tips with the parents. Schools can clock in the hours of these talks/ workshops/ activities and tap on the SFE funds.
We do not encourage or advise school to get teachers to disseminate family life messages to the parents on a one-on-one basis during these events as they are not trained in delivering family life education and it is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness.
(b) Social/ Recreation Programmes
The objective of carving out 10 hours for social and recreational activities is to incentivise parents to participate in SFE. Once they are bought into the programme, they are more likely to be keen on other SFE programmes. Any programmes that are not family life education can be considered as social/ recreation programmes, such as Chinese New Year celebrations, Mother's Day dedication, etc. Some schools organise a mix of social/ recreation and educational programmes. We will still clock in the educational portion under the core programme hours and the rest under the social/ recreation hours.
(c) Core Programmes
The 60 hours of educational programmes need not be all sit-down talks. Many schools organise interactive, experiential and fun activities. Schools and the service providers should tap on the creativity of parents and students to work out programmes that they like. As long as the participant learn something at the end of the activity about being a better family member or acquire skills to improve their family life, MCYS will consider supporting the programmes as part of the 60 hours core programmes. Schools that need specific programmes not available through their service providers may contact us for recommendation.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further clarification to the above.