Teck Ghee Residents Move from Awareness to Preparedness at their Emergency Preparedness Day

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong officiated the Emergency Preparedness (EP) Day held at Teck Ghee constituency this morning. The EP Day, organised by the Teck Ghee Community Emergency and Engagement (C2E) Committee, is part of the SGSecure outreach to the neighbourhoods. It aims to build a community of prepared citizens by equipping residents with skills and knowledge to respond effectively in the event of a terrorist attack.

2. The Teck Ghee C2E Committee had also organised a week-long series of activities, from 11 to 18 March 2017, as a lead up to the EP Day. During the week, community responders, comprising residents and grassroots volunteers, attended various training on emergency preparedness.

3. Addressing residents at the EP Day, PM Lee commended the good progress made by the SGSecure movement in reaching out to the community, especially in the neighbourhoods. By the end of this year, EP Days, organised by the various C2E Committees under the People's Association (PA), would have been held in more than half of the 89 constituencies to educate and train residents on life-saving skills, e.g. administering cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs), as well as how to respond during and after a terrorist attack.

4. Community volunteers and Home Team officers, i.e. Community Police Officers from the Singapore Police Force and Public Shelter and Resilience Unit Officers from the Singapore Civil Defence Force, have visited more than 50,000 households since the official launch of the SGSecure movement in September 2016. Moving forward, SGSecure programmes will intensify outreach to other domains such as schools and workplaces.

Human Emergency Assistance Response Team (HEART)

5. At the EP Day, PM Lee encouraged residents to acquire life-saving skills and volunteer to help in areas such as the use of AEDs, so that everyone in the community will know how to respond to a terrorist attack in Singapore.

6. PM Lee also announced the formation of the 'Human Emergency Assistance and Response Teams' (HEART) which will equip grassroots leaders and volunteers with skills and knowledge to help residents overcome the psychological trauma associated with a terrorist attack.

7. HEART comprises psychologists and counsellors from the Home Team, the Ministry of Social and Family Development, and the Institute of Mental Health. With the support of trained community responders and grassroots volunteers, HEART will be deployed to assist the C2E Committee within each constituency to provide psychological first aid and support to affected individuals and families.

8. Community responders from Ang Mo Kio GRC, which Teck Ghee is a part of, are among the first to be trained in psychological first aid under the SGSecure movement. Community responders from all 89 constituencies will be trained to ensure that every constituency is equipped to support affected residents and their families post-attack.

Customised SGSecure App Alerts

9. Residents were also encouraged to download the SGSecure mobile application which has been updated with enhanced features. To date, more than 340,000 mobile devices have the SGSecure mobile app.

10. Subscribers can now configure the enhanced app to receive customised alerts on emergency incidents occurring in specific locations in Singapore, e.g. office buildings, shopping malls or residential blocks, etc. by keying in the relevant postal codes. This will notify subscribers of any emergency incident at the vicinity of the specified location regardless where subscribers may be at the time of the incident. (More details can be found in paragraphs 5-7 of the media factsheet.)

11. The SGSecure app will also send subscribers news alerts on terrorist attacks and related incidents in specific regions that Singaporeans have key interests in, e.g. countries in South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, USA, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. (More details can be found in paragraphs 9-10 of the media factsheet.)

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About SGSecure

SGSecure is a national movement to sensitise, train and mobilise Singaporeans to play a part to prevent and deal with a terrorist attack. It is the community's response to safeguard our way of life against terrorism and community strife. Government's response alone is not enough.

Every member of the community must do his part by staying alert to ever-present security threats, staying united as one people during peacetime and in crisis, and staying strong to be resilient and bounce back quickly in a crisis. For more information, visit www.sgsecure.sg .

Media Factsheet - SGSecure App Enhancements (PDF, 418KB)

Media Factsheet - Psychological First Aid to Support Residents Post-Attack (PDF, 296KB)