Neighbourhood Health Service Kids (NHSKids) is a local community health service project under the NUS Medical Society. NHSKids believes that every child has equal rights to opportunities. The Project was initiated by Dr Chiong Yee Keow in 2017, and is led by medical and social work students from the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. NHSKids is one of the few healthcare screening projects serving the Singapore paediatric population, and aims to be the bridge that connects marginalised families to formal and community resources.
Dr Chiong Yee Keow
Founder, Neighbourhood Health Service Kids
We are in the so-called 'privileged' group: we had the chance to be educated in medicine. We need to use our knowledge to serve the community.
Supported by Temasek Foundation Cares, NHSKids partners NUHS, Early Childhood Development Authority (ECDA), Boon Lay Grassroots and social service organisations (SSO) to provide holistic screening for children that includes paediatric screening, health education, and also social support to help develop the child in the long term. NHSKids hopes to identify children and families who are in need of medical, social and educational intervention, and reconnect them back to the healthcare and social system by lowering support barriers and helping them achieve a higher quality of life. NHSKids continue to work to build upon the social safety net and capture more families that may unfortunately have fallen through the cracks.
NHSKids adopts a Five-Year Plan to ensure sustainability of the programme in each region.
NHSKids are always looking for volunteers to help out with our upcoming events. To find out more, you can visit the NHSKids website at www.neighbourhoodhealthservicekids.com. For enquiries, you can contact them here.
Instagram: @nhskids
Facebook: www.facebook.com/nhskids
Following the relaxation of the COVID-19 restrictions, NHSKids will resume its paediatric healthcare screening programme for the families at Kembangan Chai-Chee in September 2022, working with SSO @ Bedok and Geylang Serai.
NHSKids works closely with paediatric specialist doctors and dieticians from various hospitals, social service organisations and community partners to provide essential services to the children and their families.
Following the screening, NHSKids conducts follow-up on the families who have been referred to services, to ensure that they are well connected to the agencies.
In 2021 and 2022, NHSKids held two online webinars titled "Healthy Meals, Brilliant Kids" and “Eye-Eye Captain!”, which touched on the topics of healthy eating, eye health, digital habits and children’s behaviour.
NHSKids also organised a Recipe Contest for families in Kembangan Chai-Chee. This contest came about after the residents expressed their interest in learning how to ensure their children eat healthily. Residents – both adults and children – submitted their family recipes. Following which, these recipes were collated into a recipe book. Alongside these recipes, dietitians from NUH added their input on how to tweak these recipes towards a healthier approach. The recipe book also includes various nutritional tips and ideas, as well as how food can be used to promote the psycho-social development of everyone in the family. NHSKids also provided certain tips and services should any of the residents face certain difficulties in procuring food.
NHSKids hopes that this recipe book will be a source of inspiration and empowerment for the residents to consistently eat healthily, as well as embrace the positive functions food can play in our everyday lives!
On 29 May 2021, NHS Kids held a webinar titled "Healthy Meals, Brilliant Kids" in conjunction with SSO @ Bedok and Geylang Serai. Our attendees consist of service users of SSO @ Bedok and Geylang Serai as well as other social service agencies in the region.
For the first time, we had both our mentors as speakers for the webinar. Dr Chiong Yee Keow from NUH shared information on how to live and eat healthily whereas Dr Alicia Pon from NUS Social Work gave insight on what certain behaviour exhibited by children may mean. Following that, an exciting game of Kahoot was conducted where the top 3 winners won exciting prizes!
In May 2022, NHSKids conducted door to door goodie bag distributions at the rental flats of Kembangan Chai-Chee, to distribute daily necessities and pre-register families for the upcoming health screening event.
NHSKids offers free health screening, along with many other services, to children aged six and below. The screening is conducted to flag out children and their families who could be facing medical or social challenges, and refer them to appropriate services.
The health screening is for children aged 6 and below. Screening is targeted at families living in rental blocks, which has a greater population of lower income families.
The screening is conducted in two forms: Centralised screening at a community centre or void deck and door-to-door screening in the rental blocks.
NHSKids works closely with paediatric specialist doctors and dieticians from various hospitals, social service organisations and community partners to provide essential services to the children and families we serve.
NHSKids conducts follow up on the families whom we have referred to services, to ensure that they are well connected to the agencies whom we referred them to.
NHSKids includes education as part of our services, to ensure that families are also equipped with the knowledge to help themselves. Some of the education efforts conducted in 2021 includes:
Reflecting from our previous webinars, we have curated our very own Activity Booklet for the children to complete while the parents focus on the webinar. This way, the children would be actively engaged as well in learning how live healthily. The Activity Booklet is split into three sections for the various ages groups and children are given tokens once they have completed their respective sections.
Screenshot from Temasek Foundation Cares
