I realize I have many insightful thoughts about the special needs community in Singapore, and I haven't come across any blog so far that touches on this area. In any case, I'm here to write about how I feel about my experiences and what I've learnt in my encounters and in no way am I trying to impose my opinion upon others.

Have you ever worked with special needs kids/adults before? For people who have not the faintest idea of the above, I shall first explain what is special needs. Briefly speaking, special needs is a term used in clinical diagnostic and functional development to describe individuals who require assistance for disabilities that may be medical, mental, or psychological. As of now, I've only worked with people with intellectual disability hence my experiences are limited. However, within this short span of time working with them, it comes to my realization the futility of the efforts made to preserve their dignity.

Just last week, I had this mini debate over how the people with intellectual disabilities(I.D) should be treated as. This question has been lingering on my mind ever since a fellow co-worker warned me against being too close to the trainees(adults with I.D) as beneath their innocent facades lie scheming minds who will devour me literally. Doesn't it make one cringe, even if she is not exactly good with words, but I get the overall meaning. And this is coming outright from the mouth of an employee who has been working alongside with people with I.D for a decade.

If you were the parents/guardians of your child with I.D, would you feel safe even putting your child in the hands of someone like this? Someone who has all along been putting a judgement on people with I.D. Now, why did I bold the word 'judgement'? I revealed what I felt about my co-worker to someone of a higher management and she told me straight off not to judge people and in no way am I fit to talk about my colleague as she has been someone who has been contributing to the revenue the organization has earned over the years. Note the term revenue. I agree fully. In terms of contributing to the business aspects of the organization, I am of course not on par with this colleague, but is time the best measure of a person's integrity and ethical values? Does it mean that an employee who works 20 years for a company is lesser of a culprit than a new employee when there is an embezzlement incident involved? Doesn't this analogy make sense? So in a nutshell, what the "someone of a higher management" was trying to say is that I am judging her and I am not fit to, just because I am new. But, am I judging her just like how she is judging the trainees, telling me to be aware of their scheming tendencies? 

And that's where I feel the management needs to improve on. I know the social service sector has manpower shortages and low wages etc, so it takes a "noble"person like my committed colleague who has stayed on for almost a decade for these people with I.D. But from my perspective and my observations, there is no link between integrity and duration. Does it mean the longer a person work, the more honest he/she is? Can't a newbie like me give my honest feelings about my colleague, without being called "judgmental?", especially when she herself has judged the trainees in the first place. Ironic right. Most of all, I don't understand why must I show my authority to the trainees when my job is to empower them with the knowledge I have and encourage them to be positive. By their definition, they show their authority by bossing them around and when I smile at them and interact with them, they call it overfriendly.  What is what? To me, smiling at the lovely trainees beats bossing them around - anyday.

I'll blog more about this tomorrow. I just wish there's really a judge in the supreme court who can discern right from wrong. What is so right about bossing people around? Is bossing people around the only way to show your authority?


I wonder how Abraham Heschel will think about choosing to even believe that the trainees are scheming in the first place. I choose to believe in the best of the trainees and I stick to my principles.