SSR Seminar Series: ‘Investing’ in the Aspirations of Lower-Income Families: An Impact Evaluation of the Empowered Families Initiative Pilot
Video Recording
- Registration slots are limited and will be assigned on a first come, first served basis.
- Successful registrants will be informed by 1 November 2023 via email.
- Unsuccessful sign-ups will be redirected to attend online (refer below for online event details).
- Registrants will receive the Zoom link via email after registration.
Seminar Details
What happens when lower-income families are enabled and empowered to create change for themselves, with professionals stepping back and playing a more facilitative role?
Empowered Families Initiative is a developmental initiative that hopes to harness the strengths and abilities of lower-income families and invest in their aspirations through grants, resource and savings matching, and peer support networks to improve their life circumstances towards better socio-economic positions and well-being. As an initiative that is founded on the belief that families are agents of change rather than passive recipients of assistance, ‘investing’ in the families’ aspirations would enable them to achieve milestones that encourage them in furthering their aspirations, creating a cycle of possibilities rather than poverty.
Underpinning this approach is giving families autonomy to utilise the resources as they see fit to pursue goals that are based on their unique circumstances, trust, and relationships with the families, yet ensuring accountability from families through monthly progress reports and group meetings. This innovative approach has also led the EFI to be the champion of the inaugural =Dreams Asia Breakthrough Poverty Prize. It is featured by the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OECD OPSI) as an innovative case study here.
In this seminar, the speakers will share findings from their impact evaluation of the first EFI prototype based on the qualitative interviews with the families onboard this initiative and (un)learnings as social service practitioners.
Co-founder
Empowered Families Initiative
Co-founder
Empowered Families Initiative
Co-founder
Empowered Families Initiative
Empowered Families Initiative Alumni
Adriana is an asset-based community development practitioner. She has worked alongside lower-income families for the past 8 years and spearheaded developmental initiatives that work towards enabling families to overcome poverty, including a micro-jobs initiative for lower-income families. She also spearheaded the building of a community care hub together with residents in promoting an ecosystem of care in under-resourced communities. In 2019, she was nominated to be part of NCSS 40-under-40 network. She holds an MPA in Innovation, Public Policy and Public Value from University College London and an Executive Certificate in Leadership, Storytelling and Action from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Palvindran has worked in the social service sector for 10 years, starting off his social service profession as a counsellor working with youths-at-risk and their families, specialising in restorative justice. He then joined a Family Service Centre as Community Social Worker developing communities to support lower-income families move out of poverty. Trained in Asset-based Community Development, he was also part of the workgroup convened by MSF that created the Community Work Practice Guide for Singapore’s social service sector. He is also an exco-member of Society Against Family Violence.
Sonia graduated from the Singapore University of Social Sciences with a Master of Social Work in 2018. Since then, she has been a social worker at a community-based social service agency providing casework and counselling services to lower-income families. Sonia is passionate in empowering families and communities by partnering with them to co-create change, where an important aspect is to support families in achieving their goals. This prompted Sonia to embark on a journey with the Empowered Families Initiative as part of the team which invests in the aspirations of lower income families.
Anna Ong is a proud member of the Empowered Families Initiative Alumni. As a people encourager, she motivates, guides, and inspires others to turn their aspirations into reality. She defines success as an ongoing journey towards attainment of life goals that brings fulfilment to her and her loved ones, one step at a time. Her successes include being a new home owner, setting up her Home-based business, being a proud mother of 4, and most recently, a grandmother of 1. Anna envisions and hopes for a society where people are recognised more for their strengths and efforts rather than their deficits.
Senior Lecturer
Department of Economics
National University of Singapore
Dr Ong EeCheng is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economics at the National University of Singapore. She graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. in Economics, and from Brown University with a Ph.D. in Economics. She teaches economics of inequality and labour economics, as well as introductory and intermediate microeconomics.