PANEL CONVERSATION

AMY TONG

Amy currently works in the financial services industry with a diverse set of experience across Finance, Operations, Strategy & Change as well as Relationship Management. She believes in planting a positive seed in everything that we do and also practise mindfulness to bring joy to oneself and others. Over the years, she has been a strong advocate for charitable causes, diversity initiatives as well as youth development. She hopes to influence a positive change and inspire this through community effort.

GERALDINE TAN

Geraldine Tan, MSPS, Registered Psychologist (SPS), Registered Clinical Supervisor (SPS), holds a Masters in Applied Psychology and is a Doctorate Candidate of Clinical Psychology. She has almost two decades of experience working with individuals with a multitude of psychological problems. Geraldine is the founder of The Therapy Room strategically located in the heart of Orchard Road. She is trained in a number of techniques including, Choice and Reality Therapy (CTRT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). Her desire to help has her fill her toolbox with exciting therapeutic methods like, Hypnotherapy, Play, Clay, Sand and Colour Therapy. She is also an ACTA accredited Trainer. She uses these techniques to help clients with clinical disorders and behavioural issues. 

Geraldine conducts psychological testing for cognitive functioning, personality and job suitability. On top of having conducted workshops and talks for numerous organisations, Geraldine has been featured widely in the media including magazines, television and the internet to educate the public about the different disorders.

She has worked extensively with children one-one-one and also in group settings. In the course of her work, she has been involved in the development of programmes for children with various issues. Being trained in many different theories, she combined the different therapies and have seen a marked improvement for the children. She is currently involved with a research with a welfare organisation who work with children from underprivileged homes and have emotional issues. She was awarded a scholarship to learn Child Attachment Interview (CAI) at the Anna Freud Centre in London. In 2009, she was involved with the American of Group and Psychotherapy Association Conference in Rome where she was a co-facilitator as well as in Matsue, Japan, where she co-lead a group, too. She has been running groups for special needs children since 2014 to present. In 2016, she was commission by a treatment home for teens and a gazetted protected home that housed children who have been abused, to run Camp Global®.

Geraldine is a registered psychologist with the Singapore Register of Psychologists (SRP) and she is a member of Crisis Response Network (CRN), working with local and expatriates in times of crisis, conducting Critical Incident Stress Management. She is an active member in other professional bodies, including the William Glasser Institute and the Association of Group and Individual Psychotherapy.

CYNTHIA LEE

Cynthia is a Senior Social Worker with Rainbow Centre, Singapore. Her initial years working with families on transiting their children from special education schools impressed upon her the limited post-school options available to young persons with disabilities, especially those requiring higher support.

She was a key member in the pilot project ‘School to Community’ that developed the Good Life Transition Toolkit used for transition planning in the Rainbow Schools. The toolkit is now used for life planning with young adults in the Connected Communities Services, which aims to provide person-centred planning that empowers young adults with disabilities to plan and attain a good quality of life.

Cynthia graduated from NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences with a Bachelor in Social Science (Social Work) in 2009.

KOH SOEK YING

After 16 years in the telecommunications industry doing finance, business analysis and marketing, Soek Ying decided to devote more time to her family, especially her second son, Ryan, who is on the spectrum. To equip herself, she attended numerous workshops like ABA, Sensory Integration and Jin Shin Jyutsu. This was a great help especially when she had to homeschool Ryan during the family’s 4 years tenure overseas.

After Ryan aged out of the SPED school system at 18 in 2014, with no suitable alternative engagement and placing him in a Day Activity Centre was not a feasible option, she decided to train and develop his skill in craft work. As his skills improved, and with the encouragement of her family and friends, she started selling his products online.

Inspired by the success of Ryan’s work, Soek Ying and her husband decided to set up Mustard Tree.com.sg in 2015, to train and empower differently abled youths with industry level skills so that they too can lead a life of dignity as an employee or be an entrepreneur. It also aims to champion and advocate the needs of PWD. To date, Mustard Tree has successfully trained students/clients from various schools and agencies, eg: Grace Orchard School, SG Enable and Eden Centre For Adults in floral and craft skills.

Since Dec 2016, she has also set-up a retail store at Ng Teng Fong Hospital, selling crafts by Ryan and other PWD. Regular craft classes are also conducted on-site to groups of 4-5 students with different abilities. They currently have 2 training rooms at Devan Nair Institute. Mustard Tree is also in collaboration with a few like minded organisations on sewing and corporate projects involving their apprentices.

Soek Ying regularly shares her experiences on TV, social media and workshops. She firmly believes that each special child has his/her own God given talent, the excitement is in discovering these unpolished gems, equipping them and letting their shine.