SAMH YOUth Alive! 2024 on 16 November 2024

Opening Remarks by Mr Alvin Tan, Minister of State for Culture, Community and Youth & Trade and Industry, at SAMH YOUth Alive! on 16 November 2024

1. Hi everyone, thank you all for coming to Our Tampines Hub.
2. Mr. Winston Ngan, Mr. Ong Say How, and the team from SAMH do incredible work in helping to safeguard the mental wellbeing and mental health, not just of
   our youth, but of the community. Please give your biggest round of applause for SAMH, for the incredible work they do. I thought I will not speak off the speech, but maybe just say three things.
3. Firstly, on the landscape and situation of mental health in Singapore, particularly for our youths. Secondly, what the government and community are doing. And thirdly what all of you can do.

Landscape of Youth Mental Health in Singapore

4. The youth mental health situation, is not looking that great. According to the National Health Population survey, about one quarter of youths between ages 18 to 29 report poor mental health. That means out of four of you reported poor mental health. This is a result of many different factors.
5. I was a youth once, and many of you are undergoing the youth phase now. In fact, yesterday I was at Singapore Polytechnic (SP), and I met with many youths who are entrepreneurs dealing with mental health issues. It is a very difficult time when you are a youth. You face many different things growing up. What do you do with relationships and complications of relationships? What careers do you want to pursue, and whether you can pursue them?
6. At SP yesterday I spoke to a few youths, and we talked about their future. One said he wanted to do business, another young lady said she wanted to do finance. Later, one youth came up to me and asked, “Minister, can I ask one question? Not really related to career, is it okay?” So, I looked at him and said, “Sure.” Actually, I was quite worried, as I’m not sure if I gave him the right advice.
7. He told me, “You know, I do my best. But there is this guy in another class who I don't know. He just doesn't like me, and he's saying bad things about me. What do I do?” And it's stressing him out. I have also experienced this before, and I shared, “Hey, as a public figure, a lot of people don’t like me. This happens. If you think about people who are in the public space, you get a lot of issues like this too. When you are in school, this is something that sometimes surfaces as well.” I also shared with him one story, when I met Yip Pin Xiu about two weeks ago.
8. Yip Pin Xiu is a seven-time Paralympian, and at the National Mentoring Summit, we asked her what is one advice she’ll give our youths. And she said that even as a Paralympian, she gets super nervous even when she is at the podium in the Paralympics. So, she told her coach, “I get super nervous.” Guess what her coach told her? Her coach said, “Pin Xiu, don't worry. Swim in your own lane. Focus on your own race.” When I shared the story with the young man, he started tearing. And I realised that it must have meant a lot to him – that somebody listened, and somebody gave advice from a wise young lady called Yip Pin Xiu.

How Stakeholders Are Addressing Youth Mental Health

9. What are we doing collectively to help to safeguard and promote mental health and mental well-being? Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has said that mental health and mental well-being is a national priority. And if you know PM Wong, it's not just “say only”, but do. So, what have we been doing?
10. During the pandemic, our youths told us that mental health and mental well- being was very important to them. So, we set up the Youth Mental Well-Being Network. After the pandemic we expanded it because mental health doesn't just affect youths, it affects everyone. So we expanded it to the SG Mental Well- Being Network, a network that brings together a whole group of experts, youth- led organisations and people who care deeply about mental well-being, including SAMH, Agency for Integrated Care, Beyond The Label, Campus PSY, Limitless, Calm Collective, Growth Collective, and Institute of Mental Health. These different groups of people came together, pulled our resources together, and made sure that we can support every single one who may be struggling with mental health and mental well-being issues.
11. One particular outcome of the SG Mental Well-Being Network is the Well-Being Circles. There are now 12 Well-Being Circles throughout Singapore. One of them is in my constituency Moulmein-Cairnhill, there is one in Yuhua, and others in Kolam Ayer, Punggol West and Zhenghua too. So, what do these Well-Being Circles do? These Well-Being Circles are set up with the support of groups like Campus PSY, Limitless, Happiness Initiative and others, with three missions. One, to lower the stigma associated with mental health and mental well-being. Two, to raise the awareness of mental well-being and mental well- being issues. Third, which is the most important, to train every single one of us as peer supporters, so that if you have a friend, a family member, a child or somebody else you know who is struggling with mental health and mental well- being issues, you will not say, “Aiyah, live with it lah”, or “Get it over and done with lah”. Instead, the Well-Being Circles will equip you with key skills to say, “It must be difficult”, “You must be struggling”, “I understand”, “I can empathise”, “I know somebody who's struggling with the same issue”, “I know somebody who can empathise”, or “I know someone in your shoes”. It’s about peer support.
12. What we are going to do today is to announce that we will make available a Well-Being Circle Playbook, so that any of you, any one of you, who would like to set up a Well-Being Circle in your community can use this Playbook to set it up. You can also connect with the SG Mental Well-Being Network to help you to set this up. Now we have 12 of these Well-being Circles throughout Singapore, and also more than 900 peer-support circles in schools, communities, and also in workplaces. In fact, we are going to launch it in 30 minutes on the SG Mental Well-Being Network’s LinkedIn page. It's available to all of you. It's a very practical guide on how to set up and what you need to do to make it successful. So please go ahead to download and learn about it, and connect with us to set up these Circles.

What Every Individual Can Do to Support Well-Being

13. Now, finally, what you can do. As Winston had mentioned, you are already doing plenty. Today, all of you have turned up, you've set up the booths. I'm looking very much forward to visiting every single booth. You are connecting with your friends and availing them to resources available. You are also using social media, for example, with the Creative Reels Competition to create good content that you can then push it out to people. And that's incredibly important.
14. So, thank you everyone for listening. Thank you everyone for most importantly, being here. Let's help to solve and do our best to manage and address the issues with regard to mental health and mental well-being. Let's work together with our Government as well as all of our partners in the community to build more Well-Being Circles and strengthen the mental well-being support for our community. And lastly, continue to do what you do best, which is advocate and act. Thank you very much, and congratulations to SAMH.