About Us

In April 2019, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) launched the Community Link (ComLink), to provide greater support to around 1,000 families with children living in rental housing so that they can achieve stability, self-reliance and social mobility.

Given the protracted economic and social impact of COVID-19, MSF has accelerated plans to strengthen support for the lower-income and families and individuals in need.

MSF will be scaling up the ComLink initiative nation-wide to 21 towns over the next two years. The ComLink scale-up is expected to benefit 14,000 families with children living in rental housing across Singapore.


Greater support for the lower-income and vulnerable

ComLink provides Comprehensive, Convenient and Coordinated (3C) support to empower families with children living in rental housing to improve their circumstances and build up resources for a brighter future. The goal is for these families to achieve Stability, Self-reliance and Social mobility (3 'S'), including home ownership for those with potential. This is done through proactive outreach, closer case support, and galvanising the community to offer customised programmes and services to the families.

At each ComLink town, MSF’s Social Service Office (SSO) leads a ComLink Alliance, comprising government agencies, corporates and community partners, to pool together resources and steer this effort.

What are the programmes available or planned at ComLink locations?

The current and planned programmes at the 11 ComLink sites, include:

  • Reading and numeracy programmes for young children, conducted by various partners such as National Library Board, ReadAble, Bringing Love to Every Single Soul (BLESS) and National Youth Council;

  • Non-academic enrichment programmes for children and youths, including sports activities by SportCares, after-school enrichment classes by social enterprises such as KidsExcel, coding lessons by corporate partners such as Saturday Kids, basic money management workshops by NUS MoneyWhizz, and children activities that encourage free play, sports and crafts sessions at the Tak Takut Kids Club by 3Pumpkins;

  • Health and medical services for adults and seniors - ‘Doctors-On-Wheels’, provided by SATA CommHealth and Woodlands Health Campus;

  • Support and life-skill programmes for parents, conducted by Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) and Social Service Agencies (SSAs), such as Care Corner Singapore Limited and Young-en Care Centre; and

  • Skills upgrading and job matching services, provided by partners such as Mendaki Sense, Workforce Singapore (WSG) and Fast Jobs – a job search portal under Singapore Press Holdings.

Proactive outreach to address families’ needs early

ComLink brings various partner agencies together to understand the families’ holistic needs, aspirations and interests, so that appropriate services and programmes can be customised for different needs.

From May 2019, the ComLink Alliances, together with volunteers, organised door-to-door visits as well as focus group discussions to reach out to the families. Through these engagements, each ComLink Alliance identified local needs, and invited partners to run customised programmes and services to strengthen the existing ecosystem of support. Families with needs were also quickly linked up with the relevant agencies for support.


Providing comprehensive case support through action planning and journeying with families through befriending

Given the day-to-day stressors that they face, many lower-income families may not have the bandwidth to plan and set goals for the future. Under ComLink, these families will not only receive support from Government agencies and community partners, but also have befrienders assigned to journey with and support them over the longer term. The ComLink befrienders will serve as a consistent touchpoint for the families, checking in on them regularly, and working with them to develop action plans to achieve their short and long-term goals.

ComLink befrienders will also work closely with the ComLink families and agencies, coordinated backend by the SSOs, to co-develop comprehensive and coordinated action plans. We will progressively scale this integrated model of care to ComLink families, over the next few years to support the families in achieving the 3 ‘S’.

At the same time, MSF is also coordinating befriending efforts across agencies who are also supporting the same family, such that over time, families will be able to interact with a dedicated team of befrienders to support them comprehensively instead of many different befrienders from multiple programmes.