There's light even in the darkest of times, evident from the story of a 19-year-old boy who turned his life around despite his troubled circumstances.

With parents who'd committed drug-related and sexual offences, and being sent to a children's home for a criminal offence, things were looking bleak for the youth.

Nevertheless, he worked to improve his lot, earning an early release nearly two years before his placement was due to come to an end.

In a judgement dated Apr. 18, 2024, the judge set out his reasons for letting the youth leave the children's home early to "live independently as a productive member of society".

Troubled past

The judgement first painted a dire picture of the boy's household situation in the past.

His father was in and out of jail for drug-related offences and was serving time for a sexual offence.

The youth's mother, too, was repeatedly jailed for drug offences. She was also on long-term anti-psychotic medication.

Suffering from neglect, the boy was taken in by a foster family from 2011 after care and protection orders were made.

His time in the foster home was cut short in 2021, however, when he got involved in a criminal offence and ended up being investigated by the police.

He was committed to a children's home until he turned 21 and issued a conditional written warning.

Wake up call

The silver lining in the boy's committal to the home was that it was a wake up call of sorts.

It spurred his mother to seek help from the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), coming to terms with the fact that her mental health condition had caused her to neglect her parental duties.

Opening herself up to treatment and community support, she was able to stabilise her condition and improve her capacity to support her child.

The boy himself progressed "remarkably" after entering the home, said the judge.

He enrolled in a vocational course to gain work experience while earning an income to support his family.

Things started to look up

Through the course, the boy underwent an attachment to a hotel's culinary division, during which he "performed well" and "showed strong leadership qualities".

In fact, he was selected to be part of a team that prepared food for the Singapore Grand Prix, and for a farewell event at the Istana for former President Halimah Yacob.

The youth voiced that he was "proud of himself" and "thankful for the opportunities opened to him".

He spoke of his ambition to pursue culinary arts at a polytechnic so he could become a professional chef.

He also learned to manage his finances under the guidance of a case worker from the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF).

With his pay from the hotel, he bought groceries and other necessities for his family, on top of giving his mother a monthly allowance.

Court convinced by "maturity of the youth"

As he prepared to leave the home and rejoin his mother, the judge noted that the boy took conscious efforts to overcome the challenges they'd face together.

Aware of his mother's mental health condition, he worked to identify the triggers that escalated them, and how he could manage her in the case of an episode.

For himself, he completed treatment with the National Addictions Management Service (NAMS) to address the "delinquent tendencies" that landed him in the children's home.

NAMS later deemed the youth to have a "low" risk of re-offending.

The judge concluded that the youth was now well equipped to "support himself and his family", adding:

"Much of the work in the child protection ecosystem is unsung. This case testifies to the good that it does."

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Top image via Bing Hui Yau/Unsplash