More trained counsellors needed to identify problem
gamblers: council
By Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 24 September 2007 2345
hrs
SINGAPORE : Every social service centre in Singapore should have
trained counsellors to identify problem gamblers.
This tops the wish list of the National Council on Problem
Gambling, which will soon begin its second term.
The council also wants to reach out to more young people by working
with schools.
It says the fundamentals to tackle problem gambling already exist
but it wants to do much more.
The council has just ended its first two-year term and now wants to
focus its next two years on refining and expanding its current
activities.
That is why it wants to train at least one staff member in every
social service centre to identify people with excessive gambling
habits.
Professor David Chan, Service Delivery and Research Sub-Committee,
National Council on Problem Gambling said: "There is a need to make
sure that these services are integrated, that individuals that come
and seek help are properly referred. Sometimes individuals with
problems don't come to seek help, and the challenge is how then for
us to reach out to these individuals."
Over 250 social service staff have already been trained to identify
problem gamblers in the past two years. But the council feels that
this is not enough.
The council says the issue of problem gambling is still relatively
unexplored, not just in Singapore but in other parts of the
world.
So for the past two years, the council has been working to plug the
information gaps.
Currently, an International Advisory Panel is being formed to beef
up the council's expertise in research, service delivery and
prevention measures.
More details are expected to be announced in the next two months
and young people will continue to be the council's focus. That is
why it hopes to include problem gambling as part of the school
curriculum.
Debra Soon, Youth Sub-Committee, National Council on Problem
Gambling, said: "We know from our informal feedback that certain
schools would have used the impending opening of the integrated
resorts as a topic for discussion and we'd like to be able to see
whether or not we can work with schools to get more of these topics
in."
The council begins its second two-year term with five new
members.
While it is optimistic of the progress made so far, it says it will
get a better feel of how it has performed when results of its
annual survey on public attitudes towards gambling are released in
the coming months. - CNA/ch