Megan Khung's preschool noticed injuries, but incident report didn't 'fully describe' its severity

The Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) issued a statement to address recent cases in court regarding child abuse, including the case involving four-year-old Megan Khung.

According to MSF, Khung's preschool had noticed the "visible injuries" on the girl.

An incident report prepared by the community worker from an affiliated social service company was then submitted to the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA).

However, the report did not fully describe the severity of the injuries.

This resulted in inadequate interventions by the relevant agencies.

Timeline

March to April 2019

On Mar. 19, 2019, the Healthy Start Child Development Centre (HSCDC) observed visible injuries on Khung and submitted an incident report, prepared by the community worker from its affiliated Social Service Agency (SSA) to ECDA in early April 2019.

The report also highlighted that the SSA had since established a care plan for Khung, and the mother had consented to have Khung move in with her grandmother.

The report concluded that Khung appeared happy, had no further injuries, and had been attending preschool daily since Mar. 19, 2019.

When ECDA followed up with HSCDC a few days after receiving the report, the preschool confirmed that Khung was well and still attending preschool.

Based on the information presented by HSCDC, there was no reason for ECDA to suspect child abuse.

September 2019

In September 2019, following Khung’s withdrawal from preschool, the SSA community worker consulted a Child Protection Specialist Centre (CPSC), due to concerns over the case, including the whereabouts of Khung.

CPSC advised the SSA community worker to continue working with Khung’s grandmother to make in-person contact with Khung to check on her well-being.

In October 2019, the SSA community worker also wrote to ECDA and informed them about Khung’s withdrawal from preschool.

The community worker mentioned that they had already reached out to CPSC on the case and asked ECDA if Khung was registered in any other preschool.

ECDA was unable to find records of Megan’s enrolment in other preschools and advised the SSA community worker that a police report should be made if there were concerns about Megan's whereabouts.

Key lessons

According to MSF, three key lessons have been drawn from past cases over the last 10 years.

1. Children not being referred to social services, which made it challenging to identify suspected child abuse.

2. Inability to "sight children", often due to parents denying access to children or providing false information about the child's whereabouts.

3. Practice-related issues, such as inadequate interventions by social service professionals or, as in Khung's case, inaccurate assessments on the severity of a case.

To improve early detection and reporting of abuse, MSF said it has invested in public education and made it easier to report abuse.

These include, but are not limited to:

1. Increased public awareness and channels to report abuse

2. Clear requirements for SSAs to physically sight the child and introduction of a framework to guide SSAs facing challenges in doing so

3. Tightened protocols for assessing children both in person and through video calls when there are concerns about abuse

And also improved protocols in preschools.

In 2021, the ECDC Code of Practice was updated to include additional operational guidelines and workflows to guide preschools on actions to take if a child is suspected to be abused.

To ensure more accurate assessments, preschools are now required to use a diagram to document visible injuries on the child, rather than relying solely on written descriptions.

For cases reported to ECDA by preschools, ECDA officers will assess the case and advise preschools on the appropriate follow-up steps.

While noting that the recent cases were deaths that occurred in different years and not representative of a spike in cases, MSF said they review the circumstances and identify "critical lessons" from every case.

This is to enhance operating protocols, which MSF had previously done from other specific cases.

MSF said collectively, the changes have systematically strengthened the "child protection ecosystem".

You can find their full statement here.

Image from Simon Khung Instagram