FASS has just held a unique workshop targeted at sharing ways on how to help children in the region at risk due to poverty and other threats to their welfare. Jointly organised by the Centre for Social Development Asia (CSDA) in the Department of Social Work and the Family, Children and Youth Cluster at FASS, discussions were held over the 16th and 17th of December on campus.
The workshop, themed around Childhood Poverty and Child Protection, brought together a select group of academics and practitioners who presented papers covering eleven countries in the Asia-Pacific region on children-at-risk. In her opening remarks, Dr Rosaleen Ow, head of the Social Work Department at NUS, remarked that due to regional economic and population changes, ever more families are at risk and more children are affected, hence the need for this workshop. Dr Ow noted that in recent years her department is approaching such issues more from an intergenerational perspective. This means that problems faced today within families are often linked to what has happened potentially several generations ago, and only by dealing with such issues will the problems cease to persist. Dr Ow also shared that her department has always had an interest in working with children and will continue to do so as it heads into its 60th anniversary in 2012.
The organizer of the workshop, Dr Irene Ng, from the Social Work department commented that the targeted workshop is focused on sharing best practices and ideas that can be applied to programmes in countries around Asia. A publication bringing together the papers as either a book or a special edition journal is expected.
For the full workshop programme please click here: http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/fcy/newsevents/Children-at-Risk%20Workshop%20Programme-draft29Nov.pdf