New ComCare.sg web portal launched

SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) has launched a new web—based portal called ComCare.sg to clearly outline the available help options for citizens.

Minister of State Halimah Yacob on Monday said the portal is targeted primarily at the intermediaries providing ComCare help and these include the Family Service Centres, the Community Development Councils and the grassroots organisations.

"ComCare.sg is a centralised web portal that presents information in a concise and clear manner, information on ComCare," she said.

"We need this portal because we have received feedback that people find it very complicated to make use of the information that we put on the website."

"You can have the policies right, you can have the schemes right but then if people say ’it is still so difficult for me to access’, ’I don’t know what to do’ or the agencies helping them find it so tough, then I think it defeats the purpose," Madam Halimah added.

"This is part of our effort to make the schemes and policies more accessible."

And there have been improvements to the information sharing on the portal.

Madam Halimah said the ministry is doing away with the names of schemes and information is now organised according to needs and communicated in an easy—to—understand manner.

"The problem is ... what we have done so far is to describe the schemes. We have ComCare Grow, ComCare Enable, ComCare Work Support and we assume people understand what those schemes entail. But people don’t," she said.

MCYS has also developed a ComCare Assistance Finder tool and will point users to the relevant pages of assistance based on the individual’s needs.

Madam Halimah explained: "It (the tool) has various questions there. One question is ’I need a job’. You just go there and it prompts you with further questions, once you answer them, they give you several options of assistance available.

"It is very user—friendly. It is part of a whole series of changes and improvements that we have been making."

Madam Halimah said MCYS has distributed 5,000 copies of ComCare brochures and information starter kits to hospitals, schools and various contact points which those in need are likely to access.

— CNA/wm