Breakout Sessions
Day 1
Session 1 (Day 1)
Ever wondered how other countries handle mediation in criminal cases and successful they are? What are the secrets? Do they even mediate severe criminal cases? How could that be applied to the Singaporean way of working and approach when it comes to restorative practice? Pascal Comvalius will guide and share with you his view and thoughts. Firstly, he will give you an outline what the mediation framework of criminal cases being used is. Secondly Pascal will share captivating stories with you of mediation in criminal matters with an interesting plot twist. Thirdly will share with you what his lessons learned are, the way he deals with high conflict situations and personalities. Tips in how to improve your resilience when your dealing heartbreaking criminal matters or approaches on how to take different cultures account will be discussed as well. And finally, Pascal will give you his view on how the practice abroad can work within the restorative practice in Singapore.
Mediation in Criminal Cases Abroad and how this restorative practice approach can be helpful for Singapore
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Kligman’s (2024) Heart Strong Work: Improving Workplace Culture champions the role of vulnerability in leading workplaces guided by principles of restorative practices and relational leadership. This workshop is a response to this call for intrapersonal leader growth as a component of organizational culture change consistent with restorative practices. Workshop participants will, after some brief grounding in key concepts, engage in cooperative inquiry centered on these questions: How might a transformative, arts-based leadership development program support individual growth in displaying vulnerability and embracing other authentic relationship-building qualities in the workplace? What models are available and what is their usefulness? Participants will seek answers through hands-on exploration that includes engaging with works of visual art in relation to the theme of leader vulnerability. The arts-based activities will employ a model that synthesizes elements drawn from scholarly literature on arts-based leadership development, aesthetics, adult transformative learning theory, perspective transformation through art, restorative practices, and restorative justice. Participants will have opportunities for shared reflection on the potential value of the transformative arts-based leadership development model and how it could be applied in their own professional contexts.
Using Arts-Based Methods to Develop Restorative Leaders
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Milestone Prison Visit is a new initiative by Life Community Services Society, to collaborate with The Singapore Prison Service (SPS) to support children and youth to either restore or remain connected with their parent/s in prison to foster parent and child connection and emotional healing. Research has shown that the child is often the one locked in a second prison where there is sense of shame and guilt over the parental incarceration. When left unsupported, the child will develop low self-esteem, loss in desire to study or do well in school and potentially become anti-social.
Life Community facilitates guided conversations during prison visits to strengthen parent-child bonds. Pre- and post-visit support helps families process the experience and move towards reconciliation and restoration in relationships. The Milestone Prison Visit fosters reintegration and reduces the likelihood of intergenerational offending by bridging the gap between incarcerated parents and their children.
Breaking Barriers: Rebuilding Parent-Child Connections for Children Impacted by Parental Incarceration
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Share information on a previous project here to attract new clients. Provide a brief summary to help visitors understand the context and background of the work. Add details about why this project was created and what makes it significant.
3D Art
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By Pascal Comvalius
Ever wondered how other countries handle mediation in criminal cases and successful they are? What are the secrets? Do they even mediate severe criminal cases? How could that be applied to the Singaporean way of working and approach when it comes to restorative practice? Pascal Comvalius will guide and share with you his view and thoughts. Firstly, he will give you an outline what the mediation framework of criminal cases being used is. Secondly Pascal will share captivating stories with you of mediation in criminal matters with an interesting plot twist. Thirdly will share with you what his lessons learned are, the way he deals with high conflict situations and personalities. Tips in how to improve your resilience when your dealing heartbreaking criminal matters or approaches on how to take different cultures account will be discussed as well. And finally, Pascal will give you his view on how the practice abroad can work within the restorative practice in Singapore.
By Dr Michael Valdez Raffanti
Kligman’s (2024) Heart Strong Work: Improving Workplace Culture champions the role of vulnerability in leading workplaces guided by principles of restorative practices and relational leadership. This workshop is a response to this call for intrapersonal leader growth as a component of organizational culture change consistent with restorative practices. Workshop participants will, after some brief grounding in key concepts, engage in cooperative inquiry centered on these questions: How might a transformative, arts-based leadership development program support individual growth in displaying vulnerability and embracing other authentic relationship-building qualities in the workplace? What models are available and what is their usefulness? Participants will seek answers through hands-on exploration that includes engaging with works of visual art in relation to the theme of leader vulnerability. The arts-based activities will employ a model that synthesizes elements drawn from scholarly literature on arts-based leadership development, aesthetics, adult transformative learning theory, perspective transformation through art, restorative practices, and restorative justice. Participants will have opportunities for shared reflection on the potential value of the transformative arts-based leadership development model and how it could be applied in their own professional contexts.
By Celine Ng and Megan Poh
Milestone Prison Visit is a new initiative by Life Community Services Society, to collaborate with The Singapore Prison Service (SPS) to support children and youth to either restore or remain connected with their parent/s in prison to foster parent and child connection and emotional healing. Research has shown that the child is often the one locked in a second prison where there is sense of shame and guilt over the parental incarceration. When left unsupported, the child will develop low self-esteem, loss in desire to study or do well in school and potentially become anti-social.
Life Community facilitates guided conversations during prison visits to strengthen parent-child bonds. Pre- and post-visit support helps families process the experience and move towards reconciliation and restoration in relationships. The Milestone Prison Visit fosters reintegration and reduces the likelihood of intergenerational offending by bridging the gap between incarcerated parents and their children.
By Shah Noentil
This workshop invites participants into a restorative framework for supporting families affected by incarceration. Rather than seeing reintegration as a checklist of supervision and service compliance, we explore it as a relational process that calls for healing, accountability, and co-created belonging. Drawing on principles of restorative practices, participants will learn how the Family Strengthening Programme (FSP) uses restorative circles and conversations—such as storytelling, shared grieving, family play, and community engagement—to help parents and children navigate painful histories and reimagine their identities together.
The workshop also highlights how these relational circles extend beyond the family. Community befrienders and volunteers are part of widening the circle of care—anchoring both children and parents in a sense of shared belonging. Their presence helps families feel seen, supported, and remembered by the communities they return to. We also hope to invite deeper engagement from systems—schools, social services, and justice partners—through reflection circles that shift the posture from control to care. Reintegration is not the burden of individuals alone, but a shared responsibility held by the ecosystems around them. This workshop offers both inspiration and practice—centering hope, culture, and relationship as the roots of lasting reintegration.By Jae Young Lee
The concept of Restorative Justice was introduced in Korea in the early 2000s within the legal system and civil society. Since then, its principles and practices have expanded widely across various sectors, including restorative life education, restorative policing, restorative prisons, and restorative apartment communities. This presentation will explore how the Restorative Justice movement has evolved in Korean society over the past two decades and the key lessons we have learned from its implementation.
By Lorraine Lim, Deborah Wan and Ben Ang
The GROW Project brings together complementary expertise of SCWO’s Star Shelter and LCCS to provide coordinated, holistic interventions for families affected by violence. GROW adopts a multi-agency, whole-of-family approach to address the complex dynamics of domestic violence. It recognises the need to concurrently support persons who experience harm (PEHs) and persons who cause harm (PCHs). While existing interventions focus on survivor protection or perpetrator rehabilitation separately, many families hope to end the violence while preserving their relationships.
Families referred into GROW receive structured support across all three agencies. Star Shelter supports PEHs by meeting their basic, practical, emotional, and personal development needs through safe accommodation, therapy, and empowerment activities. A network of male community allies engages male PCHs in community-based interventions focused on emotional regulation and accountability. Through coordinated casework, families assessed to be ready may enter restorative justice processes facilitated by LCCS to address harm and rebuild trust.
GROW offers an integrated response that promotes healing, empathy, and accountability — supporting families in working toward safety, stability, and more functional relationships.
By Terry O’Connell and Kerrie Sellen
This breakout session provides participants with an opportunity to raise issues, provide commentary or simply ask question following the keynote address ‘Revisioning Restorative: What it offers or where it fits?’
This will be a highly interactive process and notably, the facilitators will use a ‘Socratic’ engagement style. Be warned, participants will be expected to provide the answers, facilitators will guide the process using open ended questions to challenge ‘those things we take for granted’. Be prepared to leave with lots of questions.
By Andrew Ballin
Coaching frameworks are widely held as essential tools to assist individuals and professionals across most sectors to operate reflectively, problem solve and enhance their outcomes and performance. Most coaching frameworks have similar processes and features, with some nuances that may create individual preferences for one or another. Relational and Restorative approaches have several significant contributions to make to the process of coaching that many find transformational in their approach. Whilst traditional coaching shares the value of prioritising the quality of relationship between the individuals involved to enhance the outcomes of the coaching session, there is also some significant differences in the new "relational coaching" framework.
Firstly, traditional coaching models involve a deep dive into understanding a "problem". In cases involving interpersonal conflict (which is relatively frequent in the experience of coaching), this often means by default the other is by definition the "problem". Restoratively, this is not a useful perspective, and the relational coaching framework solves this problem.
Secondly, the model encourages restorative approaches by including other's perspectives in the process of resolution rather than leaving one party to do all the "problem solving".
Thirdly, the framework is flexible and developmental. Instead of seeing situations as single problems to be fixed, most users find themselves going through multiple stages of "realisation". With some experience, a coach can quickly learn to individualise coaching sessions to be short (get to a next step) or more in-depth and multi-layered to allow the full impact of new realisations to be implemented. Most users benefit greatly from this individualised approach.
Fourthly, and of great significance, is that this coaching framework has been used frequently in a "self-coaching" format. By providing a structured reflection framework, rather than waiting for a coaching session which may not be available at the point in time needed, individual users frequently report finding significant benefit from engaging with the process themselves even without a coach present, simply by following through the framework.
The framework follows basic restorative principles and so is useful for those familiar with Restorative work but is also most beneficial for those without prior RP experience. It can serve as a "gateway" experience to introduce RP to individuals or teams.
By Winnie Tan (Zhangde Primary School)
This insightful 30-minute workshop presents a primary school's authentic journey in implementing restorative practices (RP), showcasing how this approach has revolutionised their school culture and student development. Through examining the school's actual experiences, challenges, and successes, participants will gain practical insights into how RP serves as a cornerstone for developing students' social-emotional competencies and 21st-century skills.
The session unfolds through the school's documented journey, demonstrating how their systematic implementation of upstream and downstream interventions has:
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Enhanced students' self-awareness and emotional regulation
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Transformed classroom dynamics and school relationships
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Developed students' capabilities in perspective-taking and empathetic listening
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Strengthened conflict resolution skills and responsible decision-making
Participants will explore real cases that illustrate:
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The school's initial implementation challenges and solutions
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Successful strategies for staff capacity building
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Evidence of improved student outcomes and relationship qualities
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Integration of RP with existing school programmes
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Measurable impact on school culture and student development
Through examining actual scenarios and intervention outcomes, attendees will understand how this school's RP journey has created a nurturing environment where students develop both character and competencies essential for future success. The workshop provides practical takeaways from a proven model of RP implementation, enabling participants to adapt these insights for their own contexts.
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By Scott Chew (Unity Secondary School)
Over the past three years, Scott has led his school in embedding restorative practices as a cornerstone of student management and guidance. This presentation shares the journey of implementation – from early challenges to the transformation of classroom culture. Through practical examples and student voices, Scott will highlight how restorative approaches improved relationships, reduced conflict, and strengthened trust.