Speech by President Halimah Yacob at Children’s Cancer Foundation’s 30th Anniversary and Official Opening of Community Office at GB Point

Mr Ho Cheng Huat, Chairman of the CCF Board

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Good morning. I am delighted to join all of you in celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Children’s Cancer Foundation (CCF). It is both heartening and inspiring to see how CCF grew from a ground-up movement supporting children with leukaemia, to become an established provider of integrated psycho-social services and programmes for children and families affected by any forms of childhood cancer.

CCF’s journey began in 1992 when a doctor and a group of volunteers came together to improve the lives of children with leukaemia through enhancing their emotional, social and medical well-being. These efforts range from assigning a child life worker to providing art assisted therapies to its beneficiaries. In Singapore, an average of 144 children are diagnosed with cancer each year. Over the years, CCF has helped more than 3,500 children and their families at different stages of their illness and recovery.

CCF’s model of care adopts a holistic approach with the child at heart. Each child receives specialised assessments by CCF social workers who customise psycho-social treatment plans that dovetail with individualised care plans in hospital, taking into consideration each child’s unique biology, psychology, social and religious background.

This approach underscores CCF’s close collaboration with hospitals such as KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) and National University Hospital (NUH). CCF works hand-in-hand with the hospitals to set up a network of seamless support around the children as well as their families who care for them.

CCF@KKH and CCF@NUH Family Support Centres were established on-site in both hospitals as far back as 1997 to collaborate on research and funding. Over the decades, CCF augmented its teams at the hospitals to include social workers and child life therapists to help the children cope with difficult treatment procedures and side effects. It also provided both financial and emotional support for their families.

I am happy to note that CCF and KKH are also formalising their partnership with an Memorandum of Understanding as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations.

With medical advancements, many more children are surviving childhood cancer. For example, the overall survival rate for the most common childhood cancer, leukaemia, is 89 percent. But their journey to recovery – and CCF’s journey with them – does not end with hospital discharge or the end of active medical treatment. The process of re-adjustment and re-integration back to the community is crucial. It is important for our children to heal in body, mind and spirit, so that they could grow up confidently and lead happy, fulfilling lives.

Today, I will be officially opening CCF’s Community Office here at GB Point. This is where childhood cancer survivors receive continual care and support to help them re-integrate into their communities and networks after their treatment. I look forward to visiting together with you later this morning:

• the dedicated clinics and studios for therapeutic intervention programmes, ranging from Art and Play Therapy to Animal Assisted Therapy;

• the Hangout Room, Wellness Studio and activity areas that serve as a safe place of respite and camaraderie among the youths who survived childhood cancer; and

• the Place for Academic Leaning and Support (PALS), CCF’s interim learning centre that provides schooling and support services to facilitate a smooth transition back to mainstream schools for children up to secondary level

The move to this new and larger premises is a significant step towards CCF’s long-term strategic plan to establish an accessible one-stop centre in the community for patient care and knowledge. It is also a culmination of new therapeutic and aftercare services introduced over the years to meet the evolving needs of childhood cancer survivors, who are also growing up in an increasingly complex world.

This is a fitting milestone to mark CCF’s 30th birthday. I commend and congratulate the management and staff – past and present – for their continuous effort to give the children the will and hope for a promising future. All of these would not be possible without the generosity and support of the sponsors, donors and volunteers who supported CCF’s cause to make a tangible difference to young lives impacted by cancer.

In doing so, you help build a compassionate and inclusive society in Singapore, and I encourage you to continue building long and meaningful partnerships with CCF.

In closing, I wish CCF a very happy 30th anniversary and many more years of re-defining childhood cancer care in Singapore.

Thank you.