Towards Ageing Well with Healthier SG: Community Mobilisation and Asset-building Approaches

A former psychology-trained behavioural therapist, Su transitioned into community development following her early work with families of special needs children and individuals facing substance abuse challenges. This formative experience reinforced her belief in the need for community-based solutions.

Since 2015, Su has co-developed and evaluated community development initiatives aimed at successful ageing through the ComSA initiative, in collaboration with the Tsao Foundation, as part of her PhD in Public Health. She currently serves as a Senior Research Fellow at the International Longevity Centre-Singapore, the research and advocacy arm of the Tsao Foundation, dedicated to enhancing the longevity experience in Singapore and beyond.

With over nine years of experience working in or with the social service sector, Su is passionate about empowering individuals through community-centred approaches. Her work spans Singapore, India, Thailand, and the Philippines, where she developed the Community Resilience Framework and Good Practice Checklist to enhance resilience and build capacities for ageing communities to cope, adapt, and thrive.

In addition to her research role, Su is adjunct lecturer at NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and previously served as associate faculty at Singapore University of Social Sciences, teaching courses on program evaluation, health behaviours and communication.  She is also the Co-Principal Investigator at NUS on a new $1.6 million ‘Seniors Action towards Greater Empowerment’ project, focusing on grassroots, senior-led initiatives to foster community resilience and well-being.

View her full profile here.

Dr Fong Ngan Phoon graduated in medicine from the University of Singapore in 1978 and obtained a master’s in public health from the National University of Singapore in 1981. He is passionate to promote healthy ageing in the population in various positions over the past three decades – as an academic faculty, as a senior management officer in a community hospital which provides medical, nursing, and rehabilitative care for older persons, and in community services.

He is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor of the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore (NUS) as well as an Adjunct Associate Professor with the Physiology Department in the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. He held this position since 2009 after his tenure as the Executive/Medical Director of St Luke’s Hospital for eight years (from 2000-2008).

He is the Director of the Graduate Diploma of Public Health in the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, NUS, since it was launched in 2011. He has been the coordinator of the Master of Public Health postgraduate module “Public Health and Ageing” since the launch in 2013 till date.

Dr Fong has also a part-time Consultant under the PTPS (Part-time Professional Scheme) with the Ministry of Health for the last six years. He has the responsibility of working with the Healthcare Finance team to ensure that there is efficient utilisation of the community hospital resources through review of the overstayers in community hospitals.

View his full profile here.

Lee Siok-Koon holds the position of Deputy Director, Partnerships and Engagement, Grants in Tote Board. Tote Board invests in the future of Singapore through effective stewardship of funds for a caring and resilient Singapore. Siok-Koon leads a team to drive programme curation to achieve strategic outcomes for Healthy Lives and Well-Being, Caring, Cohesive and Resilient Society, and Sustainable and Liveable Home.

Since joining Tote Board in 2019, the key grants that she has been part of the curation team include the Tote Board Enhanced Fundraising programme, the Digital Capability Fund for the non-profit sector, Community Capability Trust for the social service sector, as well as the Future-ready Society Impact Fund and Knowledge Partnership. As a boundary spanner, Siok-Koon has a keen interest in bringing people together to understand multiple perspectives on issues, and to help create early buy-in and collective impact for co-solutions.

Prior to joining Tote Board, she specialised in organisational development work during the Public Service Division’s Transformation Journey. She also held the role of policy officer for social and community development portfolios in the Ministry of Social and Family Development.

Siok Koon studied Philosophy and English Literature, and graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours).

Dr Eugene Shum is Director, Community Partnership at the SingHealth Office of Regional Health. He has extensive experience in community engagement and facilitates the integration of health and social care services in the community. Through partnerships with community organisations, he has developed pioneering health-social initiatives such as the Neighbours for Active Living programme and CareLine, a 24/7 nationwide telecare service which received the Ministry of Health National Clinical Excellence Team Award in 2022. Dr Shum was previously Director, Medical Affairs and Innovation at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. He has held various portfolios at the Ministry of Health, Singapore.

Dr Shum is a preventive medicine physician. He obtained his MBBS from the National University of Singapore and his Master of Public Health from the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University. He is Adjunct Associate Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore.

Wai Chiong led, started and grew several projects within the InHealth programme to address both social and environmental determinants of health. Currently as Senior Consultant of MOHT, he continues to lead Financing Redesign, the mindline digital mental wellbeing platform, and various horizontal enabling initiatives across MOHT.

Yoek Ling is an educator, entrepreneur and leadership consultant, for whom the various threads tie together in designing learning experiences, systems and structures that develop individual agency and organisational capacity for systems change and impact.

Her leadership experience spans the public and people sectors; she has held leadership positions in various Ministries domains such as trade and industry, health and finance as part of the Administrative Service; she served as the Chairperson and is now Executive Director of charity organisation, Beautiful People Sg Ltd; and is also the founding Director of Bold At Work, which invests in building capacities for designing good work and good communities. Her work includes being the community coach for building movement capacities under MOHT’s Movements For Health project, as well as partnering the Healthcare Leadership College and the Civil Service College as a learning curator for leadership development in milestone leadership programmes.

She holds a Masters in Specialised Studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, during which she focused on designing for deep learning, and graduated with a double degree in Economics and Political Economy of Industrialised Societies from the University Of California- Berkeley. She is trained in the fields of ontological coaching and learning design.