IDEVAW 2026: Weaving a Trauma-Informed Tomorrow

Social Service Agencies: We are offering a 2 for 1 deal for SSA staff (two tickets for the price of 1). Use code SSA2FOR1 at checkout, or email [email protected] for invoice bookings.

25 November 2026 | 9am to 6pm
Catapult, Rochester Commons

9:00am – 9:15am
Somatic Breathwork with Moira Loh
A grounding practice to settle the nervous system and arrive fully in the room. Moira is a somatic practitioner and facilitator who brings warmth and energy to her work, helping participants ground themselves for a day of honest conversation.

9:15am – 9:30am
Conference Welcome
Opening address by Lim Shoon Yin, Executive Director, AWARE. Shoon joined AWARE in January 2026, taking over from Corinna Lim, and brings a deep commitment to gender equality and systemic change. Her address will set the tone for the day, grounding us in why this work matters and what we hope to build together.

9:30am – 10:00am
Launch of AWARE's Coercive Control Report
What does abuse look like when there are no bruises? This keynote marks an important step in understanding coercive control and its profound impact on victim-survivors in Singapore. Drawing on our qualitative study, the address will illuminate how abuse extends beyond individual incidents of violence to patterns of control that can shape a person's choices, autonomy, and sense of self. By bringing lived experiences to the forefront, the study challenges us to recognise coercive control earlier, respond with greater compassion, and rethink how our systems support those experiencing abuse. It is a call to action: to strengthen public and professional understanding, equip frontline services to identify coercive control, expand research into the local context, and advocate for stronger institutional and policy responses.

10:00am – 10:30am
Morning Tea Break, Booth Visits, and Photovoice Exhibition
Take a moment to breathe, grab a drink, and visit our booth partners, community groups working to eradicate gender-based violence through advocacy, support, creative interventions, and community care. While you're there, spend some time with the Photovoice exhibition. It's a chance to meet the people behind the work, explore ways to collaborate, and sit with the stories shared through photography.

10:30am – 10:45am
Address by MP Hany Soh
We are honoured to welcome Ms Hany Soh, Member of Parliament for Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC, to address our conference. A family lawyer by training, Ms Soh has been a steady voice in Parliament on family violence and the protection of vulnerable women. We look forward to her reflections on what it takes to build a system that truly serves survivors.

10:45am – 12:00pm
Survivor-Led Plenary Panel: Reimagining Safety & Justice
A Critical Survivor-Led Critique of Systems and Social Norms

This panel centres survivor voices at the heart of the conversation. Survivors will share their experiences of domestic and sexual violence, and reflect on how the systems meant to support them responded. What helped? What harmed? What needs to change?

This session asks us to listen deeply and honestly. It is not about what survivors should have done differently. It is about what we, as a society and as practitioners, can do better.

Panelists: Devika Satheesh, Danyya Ateera, Faith Joy
Moderator: To be confirmed

12:00pm – 1:15pm
Lunch, Booth Visits, and Photovoice Exhibition

1:15pm – 2:15pm

What does it mean to build a trauma-informed society?

This track explores how we build a society that prevents harm before it happens. Sessions cover capability building for social workers, findings from the Masculinity Report, and healthcare professionals' perspectives on trauma-sensitive practice.

Room 1

Part 1: Demystifying Moral Courage – A Literature Review Addressing the Structural Barriers to Bystander Action in Singapore
Annette Shoba Vincent
This presentation reviews bystander intervention in Singapore and Asian societies, drawing on academic literature and AWARE's practice data. It reframes bystander inaction not as moral failure, but as a response to cultural and structural barriers missed by Western models. Social workers gain practical insights to design culturally responsive intervention strategies.

Part 2: Unpacking Trauma-Informed Consent Education – A Framework to Empower Young People
AWARE Consent Education Team: Izzaty Ishak, Tan Joo Hymn, and Mathangi Kumar
AWARE presents its process of developing an accessible, trauma-informed consent education framework designed for vulnerable and under-resourced youth. Combining years of practical experience with ground-sensing survey insights and community partner data, this session details actionable strategies to foster help-seeking, consent-seeking, and active bystanding behaviours among young people.

Room 2

Part 1: Unpacking AWARE's Masculinity Report
Caitlin C. Fernandez, Senior Research Executive, AWARE
Singapore consistently ranks at the top globally for wealth, safety and education. Yet beneath this success, traditional and restrictive scripts still hold a powerful grip on Singaporean men. Drawing on our latest research, this presentation examines the state of masculinity in Singapore and its implications for mental health, relationships, and gender equality. The research invites us to look beyond individual attitudes and consider the wider social environments that teach boys and men what it means to "be a man".

Part 2: Community Steps In – Mobilising Men for Accountability, Change and Violence Prevention
Fellowship of Men Singapore (FMS): Peter Ng, Eric Tan, and Zambri bin Othman
Professional services are essential in addressing family and gender-based violence, but they cannot do this work alone. Fellowship of Men Singapore builds community-based support by mobilising trained mentors and community brothers to walk alongside men, complementing professional intervention through peer support, groupwork and community connection. We create spaces where men can speak honestly about their struggles while being supported to recognise harm, take responsibility, and choose non-violence. Through the experiences of three FMS brothers, this presentation explores how professionals and communities can work together to reach men earlier and prevent violence from escalating.

Room 3

Part 1: Promoting Inclusivity in HIV Care
P Arun Kumar, Manager, Enhanced HIV Programme, National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID)
Healthcare should be a safe, inclusive and respectful space for everyone, including individuals from marginalised communities. However, stigma, discrimination and unconscious bias can create barriers to accessing care. Arun will walk through the importance of sensitive, non-judgemental communication in healthcare, highlighting how healthcare professionals can foster trust, uphold dignity, and provide more inclusive care.

Part 2: Behind the Examination Curtains – Navigating STI Care with Sensitivity and Compassion
Dr Koh Yun Pei, Visiting Consultant, KK Women's and Children's Hospital
What happens when a patient seeks medical care for a sexually transmitted infection? This talk offers a glimpse into the clinical consultation, exploring STI assessment, sensitive examinations, and the emotional challenges patients may face. Through a trauma-informed lens, we explore how healthcare professionals and social workers can foster safety, dignity, and trust.

2:30pm – 3:30pm

How do we build a trauma-informed system for survivors?

This track focuses on the systems survivors navigate across legal, clinical, and community settings. Sessions cover trauma-informed legal responses, clinical approaches to healing, and survivor-centric voices.

Room 1

Part 1: Violence in the Lives of LGBTQ+ People in Singapore
Naomi Lourdesamy (they/them), Counsellor, Oogachaga
How do LGBTQ+ people experience violence in Singapore, and what happens when this goes unseen? This presentation offers a framework for understanding the different forms such violence can take, the connections between them, and the consequences of these experiences going unrecognised. It considers how the systems LGBTQ+ people turn to for help can reproduce or compound the harms they have experienced. These have important implications for how trauma-informed care is understood and provided to LGBTQ+ people, particularly the central role of queer-affirming practice.

Part 2: When Stillness Does Not Feel Safe – Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness in Work with Survivors of Gender-Based Violence
Dr Sunita Rai, Clinical Psychologist, Holistic Psychotherapy Centre
Mindfulness is often recommended to survivors of gender-based violence, yet closing the eyes, focusing on the breath, remaining still or turning inward may intensify panic, hypervigilance, dissociation or traumatic recall. Dr Sunita Rai examines when mindfulness supports recovery, when it may destabilise, and how it can be adapted through choice-based language, external anchoring, movement, orienting and titration. She argues that mindfulness must restore, not reduce, survivor agency.

Room 2

Panel Discussion: Navigating the Legal System – A Practical Guide for Social Workers
Panelist: Gloria James-Civetta, GJC Law
Moderated by: Corinna Lim, Former Director, AWARE

Social workers are often the first to recognise when a client needs legal support, but knowing when and how to guide them through the system can be complex. This panel brings together family lawyers and a former AWARE Executive Director to unpack the practical realities. They'll explore when a client should see a lawyer, what to do when cost is a barrier, how courts are responding to coercive control, and what social workers can do to prepare clients for legal encounters without adding to their trauma.

Room 3

Part 1: Beyond Takedown – What Does Meaningful Accountability for Image-Based Sexual Abuse (IBSA) Look Like?
The Moxie Collective: Raag Sudha Sanjay, Head of Partnerships, and Yiu Xin Yin, Founder & Head of Community & Outreach
We do not rely on firefighters alone. Buildings have alarms and sprinklers built in to catch and prevent fires. Where are the alarms and sprinklers for digital harms? Singapore has built real mechanisms for redress against IBSA, but it was never just a content problem. It is part of a long continuum of gendered violence. Deleting a file does not dismantle the system that produced it. With the power of imagination, we reconstruct the idea of accountability: a system's capacity to interrupt the production, circulation, amplification and continuation of violence. What would accountability by design look like if it were preventive rather than reactive? Join The Moxie Collective as we map Singapore's legal landscape, its gaps, and unorthodox pathways that centre survivors and community healing.

Part 2: Unpacking Photovoice – Survivor Voices Through the Lens
Ruth Ng, Principal Social Worker, AWARE, and Hon Huiyi, Senior Case Management Executive / Case Manager, AWARE
Earlier this year, AWARE's case management team ran seven free group sessions for survivors. Through photography, alongside facilitated psychoeducation and group debriefing, participants explored the messages they wanted to share about their lived experiences. The process unearthed commonalities and a sense of solidarity in shared themes such as resilience, justice, anger, safety, and growth. In this session, Huiyi and Ruth from AWARE's case management team will share how the Photovoice project came together. They will highlight the power of photos as a safe, containing, and empowering way to uncover survivor voices, and explore the processes we can undertake, in collaboration with survivors, to allow for choice and autonomy in how they wish to be seen and witnessed.

3:30pm – 4:00pm
Tea Break, Booth Visits, and Photovoice Exhibition

4:00pm – 5:15pm
Closing Keynote: Weaving the Personal and the Political – Fostering a Truly Trauma-Informed Society
Linda Thai, Trauma Therapist and Educator

Social care workers such as social workers, counsellors and case workers operate daily at the intersection of individual hardship and systemic failure. This keynote addresses what it means to foster a truly trauma-informed society, and what that requires of frontline practice.

Trauma therapist and somatic educator Linda Thai looks beyond traditional, localised frameworks to the broader structural forces and relational networks that affect survivor security. Using the Four I's of Oppression (ideological, institutional, interpersonal and internalised), she connects individual healing to broader collective action, focusing on the eradication of violence against women.

5:15pm – 5:30pm
Closing Performance: Poetry Recital by VOWS Student Group, United World College East
We end the day with a poetry recital from VOWS, a student group from UWC East that uses poetry to speak about sexual violence and its impact. Their words help us reconnect with our shared humanity after a day of difficult conversations, and remind us why this work matters.

10:00am – 4:30pm

When words fail, photos give sexual assault survivors an outlet to express their feelings, connect with others, and claim their voice and power. Photovoice lets others see the world through the survivors' lens, gaining a richer understanding of what they feel and experience, including the unspoken details.

Earlier this year, AWARE's case management team ran seven free group sessions for survivors. Through photography, alongside facilitated psychoeducation and group debriefing, participants explored the messages they wanted to share about their lived experiences. The process unearthed commonalities and a sense of solidarity in shared themes such as resilience, justice, anger, safety, and growth.

At IDEVAW 2026, we will be highlighting the power of photos as a safe, containing and empowering way to uncover the voices of survivors, and we will share the possible processes we can undertake, in collaboration with survivors, to allow for choice and autonomy in how they wish to be seen and witnessed.

Date: Wednesday, 25 November 2026
Time: 9am to 6pm
Venue: Catapult, #02-01 Rochester Commons, Singapore 139212

Ticket includes: Access to all sessions, lunch, tea, and networking opportunities.

Email [email protected] for any enquiries.

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Catapult by CapitaLand, 1 Rochester Park, Queenstown, Singapore

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