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Since the Public Service Division (PSD) launched its lone Whole-of-Government hotline for confidential counselling services in March 2021, an average of 350 unique officers have utilised the service every month, according to Minister-in-Charge of Public Service Chan Chun Sing.

The hotline offers a safe channel to speak to trained counsellors, who can help them cope with work stress.

Chan was responding to a Parliamentary Question filed by PAP Member of Parliament, Tan Wu Meng, on the support and measures to enhance the mental wellness of public officers during the Covid-19 pandemic, its uptakes and the lessons learnt from these programmes.

Prolonged fight against Covid pandemic added to stress

In his written reply on Nov. 29, Chan acknowledged that the prolonged Covid-19 fight disrupted many aspects of the Public Service’s work and added significantly to the demands and stress on public officers.

As such, the Public Service launched a suite of initiatives to better support public officers, he said.

Wellness Ambassadors, wellness activities introduced

Other than the dedicated hotline, Chan shared that the PSD regularly organise a range of complementary wellness activities that cover topics relating to mental wellbeing, physical health, and nutrition.

“More than 28,000 officers from across agencies have attended close to 130 sessions since April 2020. A wide variety of courses related to mental wellbeing are also offered by the Civil Service College to public officers,” he wrote.

He added that PSD had also worked with the Ministry of Health’s Office for Healthcare Transformation (MOHT) to develop a one-stop repository of self-help resources, to support officers’ mental wellbeing, mindline@work.

“Since its launch in September 2021, more than 18,000 unique visits to the site have been recorded,” he added.

Community of ambassadors

Beyond that, PSD had also built a community of Wellness Ambassadors (WA) across the public sector agencies, to serve as added support at the workplace.

These ambassadors reach out to peers, and officers who feel they need a listening ear can also approach them.

“The wellness ambassadors provide basic emotional support to fellow colleagues and act as ambassadors for mental wellbeing. There are currently about 2,000 WA across job levels and agencies,” Chan shared further.

Support of leaders and supervisors important to de-stigmatise mental health issues: Chan Chun Sing

He stressed that beyond the provision of mental wellbeing resources, “support from leaders and managers was key to caring for public officers’ mental health”.

“To encourage a culture of openness and emphasise the role that leaders and supervisors play, PSD actively enlists our leaders to de-stigmatise mental health issues and support the wellbeing of their teams,” he wrote.

He gave an example of a week-long campaign in 2021 by PSD, called “Care4U” Week, which encouraged leaders and supervisors to adopt WOG wellbeing initiatives and policies in their workplaces.

It also equipped leaders with skills to identify signs of mental stress so that they can support officers and their peers.

“As we transit to the new normal, we will continue to adapt this suite of initiatives to meet the needs of public officers,” he added.

Top images from Unsplash.