Collaboration and Advocacy with Families: Protective Factors

This report examines the changing family forms in both global and Singaporean contexts, emphasizing the importance of protective factors within the community to support families experiencing developmental stressors. It presents a summary of community resources in Singapore that serve as protective factors, highlighting the Reach community service as particularly helpful for low-income families. The report also includes a reflective analysis on the skills needed to become an effective advocate for young children and families, emphasizing the importance of child care knowledge and communication skills. The analysis is supported by relevant literature, providing a comprehensive overview of collaboration and advocacy efforts for families in need.

Running head: Collaboration and advocacy with families
COLLABORATION AND ADVOCACY WITH FAMILIES

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Collaboration and advocacy with families
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Observation and analysis.................................................................................................................3
Reference list...................................................................................................................................7

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Collaboration and advocacy with families
Introduction
a.
The world has been witnessing a series of rapid changes and transformations in the
family forms from long periods of time. As an outcome, many different types of family forms
have come into prominence apart from the traditional and nuclear family structures that were the
only prevalent family forms few years ago (Gerson & Torres, 2015). There are many kinds of
reasons or factors behind this changing scenario that include an increased rate of divorce among
newly married or old couples, change in fertility trends, single-parent led families, economic
changes, cultural shifts and so on. For example, 9.8 million families are led by single mothers in
Canada as per some recent records (Easthope, Liu, Burnley & Judd, 2017).Sexual orientation has
been another important factor behind the recent shift in family forms where same sex couples
form families. Another outcome of increasing divorce rate is that the numbers of stepfamilies
have been increased as well.
Thus, the traditional nuclear family form has been declined over the course of time. From
a different perspective, it can be said that the rise of industrialization and a capitalist society have
become one of the factors that affect the declining of extended families that used to be prevalent
once upon a time globally. In the context of Singapore, it has been noticed that the rate of
marriage dissolution have been continuously increasing day by day probably because of the
increasing rate of divorce (Joyce, 2019). However, according to some records, the number of
nuclear and extended families overshadows the number of new forms of families in Singapore.
On the contrary, it can also be noted that those families have been under serious stresses
regarding inter-generational tensions, living expenses and more (Goy, 2015). Moreover, the
family forms have been taking new and diverse forms in a high pace because of the social,
economical, cultural and familial changes happening in the whole world.
b.
As mentioned above, the rapid change in family forms due to reasons like increased
divorce rates affect the upbringing of the young children who are part of those changing families.

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Collaboration and advocacy with families
As an outcome, children, especially adolescents go through stressful situations that put a long
term affect on their development. For example, children have becoming victims of inconsistent
parental guidance, poverty, unhygienic life due to lack of a reliable support network
(canr.msu.edu, 2019). These families need to be supported by protective factors that are able to
provide community support for those types of families to eradicate any kind of stressful
situations or risks that the families have been facing.
Consequently, protective factors can improve the living standards of the families by
taking care of the well being and health of young children and their families (childwelfare.gov,
2019). Specifically, protective factors help in building social connections of the families and
increasing the level of attachment between the family and the children. Apart from that, the
usability of protective factors lies in the fact that they provide certain concrete support for mainly
economically changed and vulnerable families that needs additional help or services to give their
children a happy and secured childhood. Thus, services like mental health care, prevention of
child maltreatment; economic opportunities intervene to strengthen the protective factors to help
the vulnerable families with young children.
Observation and analysis
a.
Community resource Summary
Child protective service This Singapore based community service
provides needed supportive programs and
statutory intervention services for the children
of vulnerable families. For that purpose, this
institution conducts various kinds of case
management initiatives and social
investigations in order to identify those young
children who are victims of any kind of
negligence or abuses from the part of their
caregivers or parents (msf.gov.sg, 2019). In

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Collaboration and advocacy with families
addition, this community service collaborates
with different public and private sectors to
come up with required resources for assisting
the children with guidance and protective
measures. The main purpose of these services
is to free the stressed young children from their
vulnerable states by providing therapies and
restorative practices. Some of the popular
services of this initiative include group
conference for families, recovery services
through story work and family counseling
therapy.
Child care centres CCCs is well known for providing half day and
full day child care programs to children under
the age of 7 years and also to toddlers and
infants. These care services have been started
in order to work as a community support
network for mainly the working parents or
single headed families. This is so because,
children of these families lack the needed
parental guidance and as a result they do not
reach their potential developmental levels.
Thus, CCCs help the working parents to be
stress free regarding the development of their
children by giving educational and child
developmental programs for mainly pre-school
kids (msf.gov.sg, 2019). One of the notable
contributions of CCCs is that they try to
maintain a home-like and conductive
environment for the children so that they do

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Collaboration and advocacy with families
not feel to be abandoned or detached from
familial ties.
Reach community service This service centre has several different kinds
of support services that aim at improving the
aftermaths resulting from rapidly transforming
family forms (reach.org.sg, 2019). From
marriage preparation services to services for
the young children and parents, this
community service covers almost all factors
that are behind the shift in family forms.
Among various schemes and programs, some
significant services include powerword kids,
support group and the Home Ownership Plus
Education (HOPE) scheme. This community
service is helpful for the vulnerable and
stressed families by providing counseling
services, family services, and youth services
and so on.
b.
Among the above mentioned three community resources, the last one namely Reach
community service is highly suitable to deal with problems faced by low income families. This
can be said because the centre claims to serve children who come from low income families.
Specifically, this community service focuses mainly on the stress related issues in the families
who suffer from social and financial challenges (reach.org.sg, 2019). Thus, issues like drug
addiction in young children or delinquent behaviors are taken care of by this particular service.
For that reason, the HOPE scheme has been taken for supporting the families to break out from
their poverty cycle by providing many employment skill building programs that help young
children to upgrade and maximize their skills.

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Collaboration and advocacy with families
c.
I think I need to work on building my knowledge of child care in order to become an
effective advocate for families with young children. This is so because a firm knowledge of child
care helps me in understanding the needs of young children in their developmental stages of life.
As an advocate of them, my main purpose is to improve their vulnerable states by giving them
the needed support. For example, the stability of their development, a safe environment and a
guided nurturing are all that matter for giving a healthy life to the young children.
However, it is important to be aware of what has to be done so that I can succeed as an
advocate for those children in need and their families (childwelfare.gov, 2019). Thus, a detailed
knowledge of child care will help me to be acquainted with all the significant approaches that
will be useful for providing solutions for these families. Apart from that, this knowledge of child
care can only be utilized if I manage to polish my skill of communicating with those families
who suffer from stresses. These communicative skills will help me in promoting a safe
environment in the community and in raising awareness for a healthy family life in the society
around me.

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Collaboration and advocacy with families
Reference list
canr.msu.edu, (2019), Protective factors: What are they and how can they help families,
Retrieved on: 13th Feb, 2019, From:
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/protective_factors_what_are_they_and_how_can_they_
help_families
childwelfare.gov, (2019), Protective Factors Approaches in Child Welfare, Retrieved on: 13th
Feb, 2019, From: https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubpdfs/protective_factors.pdf
childwelfare.gov, (2019), Protective Factors to Promote Well-Being, Retrieved on: 13th Feb,
2019, From: https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/preventing/promoting/protectfactors/
Easthope, H., Liu, E., Burnley, I., & Judd, B. (2017). Changing perceptions of family: A study of
multigenerational households in Australia. Journal of Sociology, 53(1), 182-200.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maira_Covre-Sussai/publication/
272305888_Measuring_Gender_Equality_in_Family_Decision_Making_in_Latin_Ameri
ca_A_Key_Towards_Understanding_Changing_Family_Configurations/links/
58d27d8192851cf4f8f5e74a/Measuring-Gender-Equality-in-Family-Decision-Making-in-
Latin-America-A-Key-Towards-Understanding-Changing-Family-Configurations.pdf
Gerson, K., & Torres, S. (2015). Changing family patterns and family life. Emerging Trends in
the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
https://www.kathleengerson.com/s/Gerson_Changing-Family-Patterns-and-Family-
Life.pdf
Goy, P. (2015), Changing Singapore family and what it spells for the future, Retrieved on: 13th
Feb, 2019, From: https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/changing-singapore-family-and-
what-it-spells-for-the-future
Joyce, N. (2019), The changing face of the Asian family, Retrieved on: 13th Feb, 2019, From:
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/the-changing-face-of-the-asian-
family-7848690

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msf.gov.sg, (2019), Child Care Centres, Retrieved on: 13th Feb, 2019, From:
https://www.msf.gov.sg/policies/Strong-and-Stable-Families/Nurturing-and-Protecting-
the-Young/Child-and-Student-Care-Centres-and-Services/Pages/Child-Care-Centres.aspx
msf.gov.sg, (2019), Child Protective Service, Retrieved on: 13th Feb, 2019, From:
https://www.msf.gov.sg/about-MSF/our-people/Divisions-at-MSF/Social-Development-
and-Support/Rehabilitation-and-Protection-Group/Pages/Child-Protective-Service.aspx
reach.org.sg, (2019), Reach Counselling Service, Retrieved on: 13th Feb, 2019, From:
https://www.reach.org.sg/counselling_page/hope-mentoring/