Assisted Deputyship Application Programme (ADAP)

ADAP exists to make deputyship simple and affordable at the moment it is easiest to arrange: the final years of SPED school. It packages the simplified court track for parents whose child clearly needs a deputy, before the 21st birthday makes the question urgent.

The practical layer

• Who qualifies: a child between 18 and 21 who is in the graduating cohort of a SPED school, or enrolled in an MSF-funded Day Activity Centre or Sheltered Workshop. The application must be uncontested.
• What it costs: the simplified track’s S$40 filing fee, as of July 2026 — against S$3,000–S$9,000 at published law-firm rates outside the programme.
• The report is handled: the mental-capacity assessment prepared by the psychologist from the SPED school, DAC or Sheltered Workshop is sufficient — no separate specialist report. MINDS Future Care Planning is the MSF-appointed agency that guides parents through the filing.

The national Autism Enabling Masterplan recommends expanding ADAP’s reach — official recognition that the window is narrow. Our advice is simpler: raise it with the school psychologist in the final school years, and the whole question costs S$40. The context is in the deputyship guide and the turning-21 guide.