Youth Talks: Living with a Family Member with Mental Illness

This panel will follow No Letting Go (Second screening)

What happens behind closed doors? Among us, there are youths who grow up with family member(s) diagnosed with a mental illness. Some suffer silently, while many cope courageously.

This panel is focused on the experiences of youths. We invite you to delve deeper into understanding the challenges faced by children and youths, and to see them as agentic beings with the capabilities in solving problems while living with a family member diagnosed with mental illness. Join our panelists who have walked the ground in this discussion, discover resources available, and explore ways in which you can play a part in supporting youths in distress.

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Khoo Yi Feng Headshot

Khoo Yi Feng
Moderator

Passionate about improving public literacy on issues relating to mental health, Yi Feng has been called “the Mental Health Guy” by friends for doing “everything with mental health.” Professionally, he works as a Youth Engagement Worker at the Community Health Assessment Team (CHAT), a national outreach and mental health check programme under the Institute of Mental Health (IMH). He actively reaches out to young people in distress via phone calls, in-person engagements, talks and innovative outreaches. Having moderated more than 10 panels, he believes in the power of holding space for genuine connection. He looks forward to discuss the film, “No Letting Go” with you and the panelists! Let’s CHAT!

Tan Yi Ying Headshot

Tan Yi Ying
Panelist

Yi Ying is the head of Youth Infinity at AMKFSC. With more than 12 years of experience in the social service sector, she has accumulated experience in working with various clientele groups, before focusing on working with youths and their families. She translates these experiences into her work with the youths within the community, be it through casework management and programmes she conducts for the youths at-risk, or for the students in the centre’s drop-in youth engagement programme. She is one of the social workers who took part in The Orchid Project, a pilot project together with NCSS to provide services and support to children whose parents have mental illnesses. Through her involvement in this programme, she has learned to appreciate the struggles that these families go through and hopes to play a role in echoing these stories of resilience to the general public.

Yi Ying holds a Bachelor of Arts with Merit, majoring in Social Work, and a Postgraduate certificate in Systemic Thinking and Approaches. She is currently taking her Master in Social Work at the National University of Singapore. She is also a trainer at SSI on the topic of ‘Working with Youths on Sexuality Issues’.

Cho Mingxiu Headshot

Cho Mingxiu
Panelist

Ming Xiu is the Founder of Campus PSY (Peer Support for Youths), focusing on mental health advocacy, training youth ambassadors with essential mental health knowledge and skills to support fellow peers-in-distress in the tertiary institutions. It also aspires to foster synergy among the various peer helping and mental health initiatives in the respective Institutes of Higher Learning through dialogues and focus group discussions.

Ming Xiu is also the Co-Chair for the Youth Alliance, and heads the volunteering arms of the Campus PSY group at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), and Singapore Association for Mental Health (SAMH).

Ming Xiu represented Singapore at the 30th ASEAN Summit Youth Leaders Interface in 2017 as the Head youth delegate; the 2017 International Youth Mental Health Conference 2017 in Dublin, Ireland, to co-facilitate a pre-conference workshop on building the right workforce to future-proof youth mental health services. He believes that every youth can play a role in building an inclusive society.

Dr Vinti Mittal Headshot

Vinti Mittal
Panelist

Vinti is the director at SACAC Counselling. She has had many years of experience, in different clinical settings, before taking on the role of director of SACAC Counselling. She offers counselling for adults, couples, kids on a broad range of issues including Depression, Trauma, Eat Disorders, Grief, Adjustments, Addiction, Parenting, and Relationships. She is passionate about helping women/men with, issues around work-life balances.

She is a third culture kid and has lived in many countries before moving to Singapore over a decade back. Her multicultural background along with many years of experience as a therapist enables her to understand and empathise with clients of different nationalities, background, and cultures, whilst retaining the objectives of the therapy. Over the years she has been contributing articles for several parenting magazines, national newspapers, and online magazines.

Vinti holds a Masters and  Graduate Certificate in Counselling, is a Certified Sand and Expressive Therapy Practitioner and also a Gottman Couples Method ( Level 1& 2) therapist along being a Clinical Member and a registered counsellor at the Singapore Association of Counselling.

CMSAC, RegCLR, MSc (Counselling), Grad.Cert (Counselling), PGDCA (Comp Sc), BSc (Hons)

Dian Farhanah
Panelist

Dian Farhanah, alongside her mother, has been caring for her older sister who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Upon graduation, Dian took a break from her regular life to take care of her sister and bedridden grandmother. It has been four years of being a young caregiver, and she is now thinking of ways to get back on track.

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