Caregiving guidelines are meant for child protection professionals: MSF

Guidelines by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) spelling out appropriate caregiving practices for parents and children are meant for professionals in the child protection system who work directly with at-risk families.

- Shermaine Ang

These include children who have experienced or are at risk of abuse, neglect or harm, said a spokesman for the ministry, who was responding to queries on the intended users of the guidelines and experts consulted in the process.

This follows a report by The Straits Times on Dec 5 on the first such guide for practitioners, providing recommendations in areas such as expressing affection, privacy and toileting. The guidelines were announced at the Asian Family Conference in November.

The "guidelines on healthy family boundaries" say, for instance, that it is inappropriate for parents to bathe their child of the opposite gender regularly when they can do so independently, and to force a child to show physical affection to someone they are uncomfortable with.

The guidelines are intended for social service practitioners from family service centres, child protection specialist centres, healthcare professionals like paediatricians and medical social workers, as well as school counsellors and student welfare officers, said MSF.

The ministry said the guide came about as it had received reports or queries from professionals and parents about whether some parenting practices were appropriate in its child protection work.

These included a parent who showered an eight-year-old child of the opposite sex when the child was able to bathe independently, and a parent who slept alone in the same bed with a 13-year-old child of the opposite sex despite the child's discomfort.