5 days ago
More families in Singapore using childminding and elder-minding services
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Active Global's part-time elder-minders helped care for its client Khor Tze Siong's mother when his family helper was away from March to April 2025.
SINGAPORE – More than 40 infants are enrolled in a new significantly subsidised nanny service here in childminders' homes and in rooms in Tampines East and Nee Soon East community clubs (CCs).
Another 180 families have indicated their interest in enrolling in the service for infants aged two months to 18 months, said the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) on Aug 14.
ECDA, which is under the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF),
launched the three-year childminding pilot in December 2024 to provide more affordable infant caregiving options for parents.
Around 50 of these childminders are currently caring for infants under the pilot, out of nearly 200 childminders who have undergone background checks by ECDA.
The agency said it is encouraged by the growing interest in the pilot.
'Parents have shared positive feedback on the dedicated care their infants receive and the convenience, especially since childminders can accommodate parents' caregiving preferences,' it said.
ECDA said it will continue to work with operators to explore more community premises to meet demand from parents and childminders, and enhance services.
Top stories
Swipe. Select. Stay informed.
Singapore Over 100 people being investigated for vape offences, say MOH and HSA
Singapore Bukit Merah fire: Residents relocated as town council carries out restoration works
Singapore askST: What to do in the event of a fire at home
Singapore Jalan Bukit Merah fire: PMD battery could have started fatal blaze, says SCDF
Singapore askST: What are the fire safety rules for PMDs?
Asia AirAsia flight from KL to Incheon lands at wrong airport in South Korea
Asia India and China work to improve ties amid Trump's unpredictability
Singapore From quiet introvert to self-confident student: How this vulnerable, shy teen gets help to develop and discover her strength
This includes matching families with childminders in convenient locations more efficiently.
Separately, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said it will be ceasing manpower concessions for basic childminding services under its Household Services Scheme (HSS).
MOM said it assessed, in consultation with MSF, that there is no need to provide manpower concessions for childminding services owing to the low take-up rate. Current migrant worker quota concessions will cease from March 2026.
The HSS was introduced in 2017 as a pilot to allow companies to hire more migrant workers for cleaning and other part-time domestic services. Approved companies under the HSS are eligible for additional work permit quotas.
The scheme was made permanent from 2021. It was expanded in March 2023 to cover basic childminding services and elder-minding services in a two-year pilot.
Basic childminding and elder-minding include tasks like feeding, bathing and dressing, as well as engaging the person in activities.
Families should approach specialised caregiving companies if a higher level of care is required, such as home nursing or home medical services.
MOM said it will continue to grant manpower concessions to elder-minding services for HSS companies and review this again in 2027.
About 1,300 households had engaged care services from January to July 2024, with more than 95 per cent taking up elder-minding services under the HSS, MOM said.
Companies told The Straits Times they expect demand for part-time childminding and elder-minding to rise as these are flexible services and can stand in for family helpers when they go on home leave.
Companies that are part of the HSS can hire female workers from Cambodia, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka or Thailand.
Under the HSS, elder-minders are required to complete their first aid certification and undergo a competency assessment conducted by an Agency for Integrated Care-appointed training provider, among other requirements.
Part-time elder-minding plugs caregiving gaps
For eldercare provider Active Global, a total of 500 families have engaged its elder-minding services to date. This is up from 100 families at the end of 2023, around half a year after Active Global joined the HSS.
The company has also received 1,855 inquiries on the HSS, said Mr Muhammad Asraf, who runs Active Global's HSS services.
He said its migrant workers received training at the Active Global Training Centre on eldercare support, safety and hygiene practices, as well as communication techniques.
Active Global's initial team of six staff has grown to 24 employees, who have at least two years of caregiving experience.
They have caregiving certificates obtained either in Singapore or from their home country, and receive additional training from Active Global's in-house nurses.
The company provides accommodation under its corporate lease for HSS staff.
One client, Mr Khor Tze Siong, said Active Global's elder-minding service helped to fill in for his family's domestic helper when she returned home for about three weeks in mid-March.
Mr Khor, an accountant, is mostly able to work from home, but he engaged an elder-minder to help him to take care of his mother, who has dementia, in four- or eight-hour blocks on days he needed to go to the office.
He said, compared with his domestic helper, the Active Global elder-minders are more skilled at caring for seniors owing to their professional training.
But he noted that they kept to their job scope of caring for seniors and related tasks, unlike his domestic helper who takes on a larger variety of chores.
Mr Khor also noted that four different elder-minders were assigned on different days, and his mother took to some more than others.
Another HSS company, Luce SG, which provides home cleaning and caregiving services, said it has facilitated more than 1,000 elder-minding sessions and more than 600 childminding sessions in 2025.
Luce SG employs 10 full-time minders from Myanmar with caregiving experience, such as former nurse aides or migrant domestic workers.
Its childminders are required to have at least five years of childcare experience.
More than half of Luce's elder-minders and childminders previously worked as live-in domestic helpers in Singapore, said Ms Abbicia Choo, strategy and planning associate at Luce SG.
Many workers opted for the switch because they prefer structured working hours and the opportunity to specialise in eldercare or childcare, while still enjoying the stability of full-time employment, Ms Choo said.
Luce's HSS migrant workers live in MOM-approved Housing Board flats or private rented units.
Many Singaporean families are also choosing not to engage live-in domestic helpers to have more privacy, Ms Choo added.
Part-time and full-time care for children
Appointed operator EduNanny by Butler, which started providing services under ECDA's childminding pilot in March, has reached the maximum capacity in its Tampines East CC facility, caring for nine babies.
EduNanny chief executive Poon Da Qian said 60 parents are on the waiting list.
Aside from EduNanny, two other operators, Kidibliss and NannyPro Care, have also been appointed to hire nannies under the scheme.
According to ECDA guidelines, each childminder is allowed to care for up to three infants at any one time under the pilot.
This is compared with one staff member for up to five babies under the infant care programmes run by childcare centres.
The pilot childminding scheme, which will run for three years, aims to serve 500 infants in the first year.
Mr Poon said: 'With Tampines East CC now operating at full capacity, our full focus is on ramping up home-based childminding.'
EduNanny currently has 17 home-based childminders listed on its portal and is onboarding an average of four infants a week for such care. It provides home-based childminders with training on infant care and safety, key equipment and materials, and support with layout and environment set-up.
ECDA says on its website that it conducts background checks on the nannies, including if they have any criminal history.
If the baby is cared for in the nanny's home, these background checks are also done on the nanny's family members and others who visit the home regularly.
Before they are deployed, the childminders must undergo mandatory training on infant care, among other things.
One of EduNanny's clients, Ms Felicia Ho, drops off her five-month-old daughter at the home of its childminder every weekday before going to work.
Ms Felicia Ho drops off her five-month-old daughter in the home of an EduNanny childminder every weekday before going to work.
PHOTO: FELICIA HO
The technical support worker decided to give the service a try as she and her husband's hands are tied up with responsibilities.
The couple have another two-year-old, and parents with cancer and dementia, who are being cared for by the family helper.
The full-time childminder has two boys of her own, aged two and 10, and lives 20 minutes from Ms Ho's home in Jalan Besar.
'The assuring thing about the childminder is she is compassionate about caring for kids,' Ms Ho said, adding that the childminder's home is a welcoming environment for the children.
EduNanny also provides babysitting services under the HSS, which are used mostly by expatriate parents, who are not eligible for the subsidised MSF childminding scheme.
The cleaning services of another company, are under the HSS, but its babysitting services are not. Founder Pierre Tan said that while it is hard to hire Singaporeans and permanent residents (PRs) to work as cleaners, many are keen to babysit to earn a side income.
Mr Tan said Meide's babysitters comprise about 50 work permit holders – most of whom had worked as domestic helpers – compared with around 9,000 locals and PRs. Most of Meide's babysitters are self-employed and work flexible hours.
Around 4,000 clients have used Meide's babysitting service since it started in 2021, said Mr Tan. About 1,200 of the clients took up the service in 2024.
One client was personal trainer John Cheah, who engaged Meide around the start of 2024 to look after his 15-month-old daughter when he was at work.
Mr Cheah was able to coordinate the babysitting arrangements directly with the sitter he was matched with. He engaged the childminder for four hours around three times a week for about seven months.
The babysitter, who is Singaporean, has five children of her own.
Mr Cheah's parents could help, but they were still working and his helper was caring for his bedridden grandfather at the time.
The babysitting costs amounted to $960 a month. Mr Cheah, who co-parents with his former wife and cares for their daughter for half the week, was just happy to come home to his only child after work.
'I'm paying for the flexibility,' he said.
