Lutheran Community Care Services Ltd (LCCS) was established in 2002 to serve families, children and youths-at-risk of dropping out of school.
It is a strong advocate for the use of restorative practices in its programme design and interventions. LCCS is an affiliated partner of the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP) to provide RP training.
RP reflects God’s heartbeat for reconciliation through the redemptive act of our Lord Jesus Christ. With this sacrificial act, we received the forgiveness of sins and holistic healing for emotional and spiritual restoration. Through faith in Christ, we are God’s new creation, living victorious lives without condemnation. This propels LCCS to spread the message of forgiveness and healing to empower the community to lead fulfilling lives. Unforgiveness breeds bitterness, resulting in anger issues, self-condemnation, self-harm behaviours, and broken relationships. Forgiveness effects healing, restoration and wholeness.
In RP, the focus is on restoring relationships through listening to everyone’s perspectives in a non-judging manner, fostering empathy, instilling responsibility and accountability. The stories below attest to the favourable outcomes of RP:
A Primary School girl felt embroiled in her parents’ conflict. The LCCS Caseworker arranged for a restorative circle for the family to enable the girl to voice her struggles to cope with her parents’ divorce. After the circle, the child felt relieved that she was not responsible for the divorce. Her parents made plans on the provision of love and support for her. Consequently, she experienced healing through restoration of her well-being and progressed in her studies.
A Secondary School student with special needs felt humiliated as he was bullied by his classmate and his parents were upset. The LCCS Caseworkers convened a restorative circle involving the victim and the offender, their parents, siblings, peers and teachers to resolve the issue. They took turns to talk about their perspectives of the bullying and how they were affected. To make things right, the offender apologised to the victim and declared that he would look out for him in school. The parents of both parties felt relieved and established a relationship. The offender’s parent gave the victim a hug and the circle ended with a friendly picture of the boys. The boys became friends.
LCCS believes that all children are blessings from God and should receive love, care and protection. As an agency accredited by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), our Adoption Service focuses on the child’s best interest through playing the key role of ensuring that prospective adoptive parents are ready and suitable to adopt a child through pre-adoption briefings, home study assessments and adoption disclosure counselling.
We equip them with the knowledge of restorative parenting style for their parenting journey. It is important that the child feels secure through reconciliation with his or her past and building positive attachment with his or her forever (adoptive) parents. Adoption provides the opportunity for the child to live life anew, a life of optimism and hope that the child may not experience in his or her family of origin in view of their unfavourable circumstances.
We Christians have experienced God’s love and mercy and are able to live abundant lives and have a future hope. Through RP, LCCS translates the love of God to His creation that none feels condemned; the community be given the opportunity to make things right and restore relationships.
Despite these good works not being adequately funded, LCCS has been consistently advocating and advancing the cause of RP in the schools and community because of our biblical conviction. LCCS has witnessed the impact of RP in achieving significant breakthrough in our work with children, youth, couples and families. We beseech the Christian community to help us to advance our good work and to make a positive impact on the lives of God’s creation through restoring and building relationships so that individuals, couples and families can lead victorious lives.
For further enquiries on our work, please email us at admin@lccs.org.sg or contact us at 6441-3906.
*LCCS is an IPC Charity, all donations are entitled to 2.5 times tax deductible relief. Cheques are payable to “Lutheran Community Care Services Ltd”. Address: 450 Macpherson Road Singapore 368170. Alternatively, you may donate to us via the SG Gives donation portal (www.sggives.org).
Methodist Message seeks to raise awareness of the spectrum of needs, healthcare and social welfare services that are available in Singapore run by various Christian faith-based organisations. In this issue, we feature the Lutheran Community Care Services.
Photos courtesy of Lutheran Community Care Services
Ms Kek Seow Ling is Clinical Director at Lutheran Community Care Services.