Opening Address:
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Ms Sun Xueling
Minister of State for
Social and Family Development, and Education |
Ms Sun Xueling was elected a Member of Parliament in September 2015. She currently holds the position of Minister of State in the Ministry of Social and Family Development and the Ministry of Education. Ms Sun serves as a Board Member of the Chinese Development Assistance Council.
After the 2015 General Election, Ms Sun was appointed CEO of Business China, a non-profit organisation which was launched in 2007 by Mr Lee Kuan Yew, late founding Prime Minister of Singapore and then Premier Wen Jiabao of the People’s Republic of China.
Ms Sun is currently the co-chair of the inter-agency Taskforce on Family Violence that aims to work together with the community to empower victims and perpetrators alike to break the cycle of violence. Ms Sun is also co-leading the Conversations on Singapore Women’s Development, which aims to understand Singaporeans’ aspirations and ideas on how we can further advance our women in Singapore. |
Data Presentation:
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Mr Wong Wah Ming
Assistant Director,
Translational Social Research Division,
National Council of Social Service
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Wah Ming joined the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) in September 2020 as an Assistant Director in the Translational Social Research Division. His team works on the Intergenerational Transmission of Criminality and Other Social Disadvantages (INTRACS) Research Programme – a large-scale data analytics project which links administrative data to answer policy and research questions on social and criminal justice.
Prior to NCSS, he was an Assistant Director at the Singapore Department of Statistics (DOS). During his tenure at DOS, his team analysed the key trends in household income and measured income inequality using the Gini coefficient. In 2019, his team set up the Trusted Centre for Individual and Business Data to support cross-sectoral government data analytics projects. They curated the synthetic data used in the Datathon for HyperHack 2019.
He is a graduate of Nanyang Technological University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in Business, specialising in Actuarial Science. His passion lies in tapping on data to support policy formulation for low-wage workers, the elderly and the vulnerable groups. |
Panel Speakers:
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Ms Sophia Ang
Senior Director,
Counselling and Psychological Services,
Family Justice Courts |
Sophia Ang is the Senior Director of the Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS) at the Family Justice Courts (FJC). She oversees the strategic direction for the mental health and social science related services within FJC. Sophia leads a professional team of court psychologists, social workers and counsellors that provides forensic and therapeutic services for litigants and their families undergoing various legal proceedings. Since joining the Courts in 2006, she has been involved in setting up frameworks and processes of counselling and family mediation. In 2011, she helped to conceive and set up Child Focused Resolution Centre, and was responsible for the development of the Child Focused, and later, Child Inclusive counselling within the Family Justice system.
Prior to joining the Courts, Sophia headed a non-profit social service agency, and provided mediation and counselling related consultation and training services to corporations and government agencies. Sophia is a registered clinical supervisor and counsellor with Singapore Association for Counselling, a principal mediator and family mediator with the Singapore Mediation Centre and a Certified Mediator with the Singapore International Mediation Institute (SIMI). |

Ms Chan Lay Lin
Principal Medical Social Worker,
Medical Social Work Department,
Institute of Mental Health |
Lay Lin is a principal Medical Social Worker with the Institute of Health since 2008. She conducts family therapy and complex case management, where family violence features regularly in her work. In 2019, commissioned by MSF, Lay Lin and a colleague completed the development of a 5 1/2-day training curriculum in the management of family violence involving vulnerable adults afflicted by mental illness and dementia. She is a current member of the training team with SSI in the management of family violence.
Lay Lin serves as a scientific member in the National Healthcare Group Domain Specific Research Board, the deputy Chair of the IMH Institutional Research Review Board, and peer reviewer with the Singapore Medical Journal.
Lay Lin has previously served with the family service centres at TRANS Bedok and Bukit Timah, where, together with Choy Yin, she gained experience and training in family violence. Lay Lin has also served as a medical social worker with National University Hospital and National Cancer, she specialised in psychosocial oncology and palliative care. |

Mr R Jai Prakash
Director,
Child Protective Service,
Ministry of Social and Family Development
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Jai Prakash is the Director of the Child Protective Service. He joined the Ministry of Social and Family Development in 2002 and has since reviewed policies and legislations related to persons with disabilities, youth at risk, children and families in need and homeless persons. He has represented Singapore at several UN and ASEAN forums to discuss child rights and social welfare issues. He also started the first Social Service Office (SSO) in Singapore to extend financial and employment assistance to low income individuals and families. In the SSO, he pioneered and developed the local planning model of social services.
Jai was seconded to the Ministry of Education (MOE) to spearhead MOE’s communications and engagement strategies driven by data analytics and communications research.
Jai holds a Master of Social Work from Washington University in St Louis in USA and is a recipient of the Public Administration Medal (Bronze) in 2015. |

Mr Lian Ghim Hua
Director,
Operations Department,
Singapore Police Force |
Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police (SAC) Lian Ghim Hua, 40, is currently Director of Operations in the Singapore Police Force. He drives the various aspects of SPF’s operations in support of SPF’s mission to keep Singapore safe & secure. SAC Lian oversees the formulation of plans, policies and strategies in various aspects of SPF’s operations, and these include law & order maintenance, crime control, security and counter terrorism, operational readiness, day-to-day frontline operations and event security planning.
SAC Lian had taken on various appointments in the areas of investigations, planning and operations through his policing career. Prior to his present appointment, SAC Lian served as the 2nd Deputy Director in the Criminal Investigation Department, where he was involved in major crime investigations and development of investigation policies from 2017-2020. From 2014-2017, he served as the Commander of Ang Mo Kio Division, where he led the Division’s efforts in fighting crime. |

Ms Cherylene Aw
Centre Director,
TRANS SAFE Centre |
Cherylene is the Centre Director of TRANS SAFE Centre, a family violence specialist centre under the parent organisation, TRANS Family Services. Besides leading a multi-disciplinary team consisting of social workers, counsellors and a clinical psychologist, Cherylene is a member of the Adult Protection Team which offers input to complex cases of elder and vulnerable adult abuse. As of February 2020, Cherylene also serves as a member of the Inter-agency Task Force on Family Violence co-chaired by Ministers-of-state, MHA & MSF.
Cherylene has slightly over 10 years of experience as a social worker in both generalist family services and specialised family violence practice settings. Beyond casework and program development, Cherylene is an active proponent of community work, research and policy practice as vehicles of sustainable social change. In 2020, commissioned by MSF, Cherylene and a team of social workers completed the development of a 3-day course curriculum on Management of Elder Abuse, together with SSI. Cherylene is also looking forward to contributing as the Chairperson of the regional Family Violence Working Group for the Bedok division in the upcoming term.
Cherylene holds a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in USA and was an awardee of the Social Service Talent Development Scheme (NCSS) in 2014. |
Keynote Address:
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Ms Kate Fitz-Gibbon
Director of Monash Gender
and Family Violence
Prevention Centre,
Associate Professor of Criminology, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts,
Monash University |
Associate Professor Kate Fitz-Gibbon is Director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre and an Associate Professor in Criminology in the Faculty of Arts, Monash University (Victoria, Australia). She also holds affiliated research appointments with the School of Law and Social Justice at University of Liverpool (UK) and the Research Center on Violence at West Virginia University (US). Kate is a leading national and internationally recognised scholar in the field of family violence, criminal justice responses to family violence, and the impact of criminal law reform in Australia and internationally. She has received research funding from the Australian Research Council, Australian Institute of Criminology, Victorian Legal Services Board, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety, Family Safety Victoria, and the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services. The findings of her research have been published in high impact criminology and law journals and presented at national and international criminology conferences.
Associate Professor Fitz-Gibbon has advised on homicide law reform and family violence reviews in several Australian and international jurisdictions. In 2016 she was appointed to the Special Minister’s Expert Advisory Committee on Perpetrator Interventions and in 2018 she was appointed to the inaugural Board of Directors of Respect Victoria. |