Lead Social Worker

at  St Andrews Autism Centre SAAC

St. Andrew’s Autism Centre (SAAC) is a non-profit organisation for the education, training, and
care of persons with autism and their families.
SAAC comprises St. Andrew’s Autism School (SAAS) and St. Andrew’s Adult Autism Services
(SAAAS), serving children, youths and adults with autism. SAAAS runs two Day Activity
Centres (DACs) at Siglap and Sengkang, and St. Andrew’s Adult Home (Sengkang),
Singapore’s first residential facility designed and built to meet the needs of adults of autism.
SAAC seeks to enable people with autism to lead dignified and meaningful lives.
We invite interested and qualified persons to join us to meet the holistic needs of the
caregivers of our students, clients and residents; by leading the team of social workers, and
working with other key leaders in SAAC (and in particular the Head of Caregiver Support), to
deliver life-giving caregiver support to caregivers.

Professional Development and Education

• Seek out continuous learning opportunities such as participating in case review meetings

capabilities

• Share new practice knowledge with social workers and other colleagues to encourage

The Lead Social Worker will lead the team of Social Workers in SAAC to provide support for
caregivers of SAAC’s school students, Day Activity Centre clients and Home residents. He/she
is expected to provide individual and group supervision of social workers, leading them to
deepen clinical practice, as well as to guide the Social Workers in working with the community
and other partners to leverage the resources available in the community to support families and
caregivers.
The Lead/Senior Social Worker will also work closely with the Head of Caregiver Support to drive
initiatives and overseeing the development and implementation of specific upstream
programmes to help caregivers better deal with the challenges of caregiving for children and
adults with autism.
The detailed job scope includes duties such as:

Overseeing the Social Workers’ Roles in Intake and Admission Exercises, which include:

• Conducting family interviews for intake assessment of admitted students and clients.
• Conducting needs assessment for families and attend to families’ critical areas of concern.
• Performing means-testing for students/clients and placement of students/clients on SAAC

subsidies and welfare programmes.

Providing Oversight of Clinical Case Work:

• Lead the social workers in partnering with other allied professionals (therapists and

psychologists) to holistically manage critical cases in SAAC, in particular in helping caregivers
to overcome familial obstacles to the education, training and care of students, clients and
residents. This work include processes such as information gathering, case assessment
(BPSS, risk & needs assessment and other relevant assessment tools), case

conceptualisation, case planning and intervention plans for best students’/clients’ outcomes.

• Identify presenting/underlying familial issues so as to design a care plan to enhance/maintain

and promote psychosocial functioning of students/clients.

• Document bio-data of students/clients in system for records, complete timely case documents

(Case session recordings, follow-up recordings, risk and needs assessment, social reports,
etc.).

Programme Development

• Assist the Head of Caregiver Support in the development and implementation of programmes

to better support caregivers of children and adults with autism
E.g. of a Caregiver Support Programme: Therapeutic Group Work for Struggling Caregivers

Community Networking and Collaboration

• Assist in the conduct of environmental scanning and assessment of available community

resources to meet complex needs of caregivers and families of students, clients and

residents.

• Collaborate with community partners and healthcare professionals in holistic client

management so as to mobilise community resources to meet the needs of the students,
clients, residents and their families.

Professional Development and Education

• Seek out continuous learning opportunities such as participating in case review meetings,

ministry-level assignments, practice research and development to further develop skills and

capabilities

• Share new practice knowledge with social workers and other colleagues to encourage a

culture of learning and continuous improvements