Meet the speakers!

Kripa Acharya
Psychosocial Counselor @Saathi, Nepal
Kripa’s focus of work and research is on Relationships, Trauma, Gender based violence, and Child and Adolescent Counseling. Her experience of working directly in the mental health sector is about 5 years. She works with the vision of creating a society with adaptation of holistic healing. She has been working with Saathi since 2019.

Anne Westcott
LICSW @SMARTMoves
Trained at Columbia University’s School of Social Work, with over 30 years of mental health experience, Anne continues to support children, adolescents, adults, caregivers, and mental health providers who have experienced or seek to help others heal from the impact of trauma and attachment disturbance. Anne formed SMARTMoves, a partnership with Dr. Liz Warner, Heather Finn and Alexandra Cook, to continue their collaborative efforts to research and training SMART a child centered full body treatment for traumatized children. Anne is certified in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, trains around the U.S. for Pat Ogden’s Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, and supports the Institute with curriculum development.

Yu-Hua LEE
Director of Linkou Service Center @The Garden of Hope Foundation (GOH)
Experience – Director General at Social Work Counselling Office, GOH – Director at New Taipei Branch Office, GOH – New Taipei City Government Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention Committee Advisor – New Taipei City Government Children and Adolescents Welfare Policy Committee Advisor

Yu-Hsin CHEN
Therapist at Linkou Service Center @The Garden of Hope Foundation (GOH)
Experience – Therapist at HOLDING SELF Counseling Center – Therapist at Community Counseling Center, National Pingtung University – Gender Advocacy Specialist at Tainan Branch Office, GOH – Council Member at Taiwan Adolescent Association on Sexualities

Hanh Thi TO
Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) Advisor @Hagar International in Vietnam
Hanh Thi To has a Master in Psychology from the Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanities. She has worked as a psychologist for 15 years, and today is Hagar International in Vietnam’s Trauma-Informed Care advisor. With extensive experience responding to the needs of survivors violence and abuse to receive support and access to quality services, Hanh is a leader in the field of trauma-informed care in Vietnam. She is passionate about building the knowledge, skills, capacity and commitment of frontline responders, social workers, community caregivers, to provide individuals, families and communities to take a trauma-informed approach. From 2018 to 2022, she led Trauma-Informed Care training for hudreds staffs from many agencies and presented at Asia conference on trafficking.

Dr. Bandy Lee
President @World Mental Health Coalition
Dr. Bandy Lee is a medical doctor, a forensic psychiatrist, and a world expert on violence who taught at Yale School of Medicine and Law School for 17 years before transferring recently to Columbia and Harvard. She is currently president of the World Mental Health Coalition. She served as Director of Research for the Center for the Study of Violence (Harvard, N.Y.U., Yale, etc.), co-founded Yale’s Violence and Health Study Group, and has led a project for the WHO’s Violence Prevention Alliance, help implement and support research in low- and middle-income countries. She authored the textbook “Violence: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Causes, Consequences, and Cures” and published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters. The Coalition is an educational organization that assembles experts for the betterment of public mental health and public safety. Her current goals aim at educating the public on mental health matters so as to empower it through knowledge and enlightenment.

Tsai-Jung KUO
Deputy Director-General of Department of Protective Services @Ministry of Health and Welfare

Experiences 2013~Present Department of Protective Services, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taiwan 2001~2013 Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention Committee, Ministry of the Interior, Taiwan 1997~2001 Department of Social Welfare, Taipei City Government, Taiwan

Shahrany Hassan
Chairperson @Casa Raudha Singapore
Shahrany Hassan is the Chairperson for Casa Raudha, an organisation that helps victims of domestic violence and is involved with the Ministry of Social and Family Development’s Alliance For Action to strengthen marriages and family relationships. Shahrany’s impactful work has earned mentions in Parliament and been featured numerous times in the media. She spent more than two decades in the corporate and government sectors where she gained extensive experience in general management with a special focus on strategic planning and execution. She is the Founder and Director of The Whitehatters; a NGO focused on community development and responsible advocacy and activism, and was recently appointed a member to the Inter-Racial and Religious Confidence Circle Refresh Workgroup “to develop recommendations to strengthen the IRRC’s capabilities, increase diversity among IRCC members, and to build more cohesive networks within the community”, under the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth.

Aster Isa Hendriks
Social Worker @Orange House
Born in the Netherlands and my mother raised my big brother and me on her own, because my father has a mental illness. Through my whole live it was important to learn to be independent as a woman and to stand up and take good care of myself. In 2018 I graduated as a Social Worker and started work as a Youth worker. The youth where between 12 and 24 years old who: had a change to drop out from school, going into the direction to criminal activities, and/or having trouble at home with there parents. I worked with the youth and the important persons around the youth (such as their parents, friends, school, police). While working as a Youth Worker I always focused on the safety from the youth and the whole family. I know how it is like to be in a rough situation and know how focusing on the strengths in the families can help them grow. In January 2021 I started to work at Blijf Groep as a social worker in the shelter from Blijf Groep Amsterdam.

Maria van Helbergen
Social Worker @Orange House
Born in the Netherlands. Studied Applied Psychology. Moved to South Africa in 2016 to work as a counselor with underprivileged young people living in the townships. Crime, poverty, domestic and sexual violence were topics that these young people had to deal with on a daily basis. My goal to contribute to stop violence and injustice grew day by day. After returning to the Netherlands I started working at the Blijf Groep. At the Blijf Groep I started as an outreached social worker; supporting men, women and children in their own houses. In April 2020 I started working for a pilot program in Amsterdam called Stay Safe, where I contribute with 5 other organizations besides Blijf Groep to support multi-problem families to be safe again. Since February 2022 I’m back at the Blijf Groep working at the intake team.