Community partnership in building a evidence-based, customised curriculum for mothers in prison to support children and families of drug offenders, WIRA (PID051)

3pm – 3.30pm EDT, 4 September 2024 ‐ 30 mins

Workshop Session

Singapore Prison Service and its community partner Women in Recovery Association (WIRA) entered into a rare collaboration in 2022-2023 to design an evidence-informed, customised 10-session curriculum for incarcerated women to help them better navigate their role as mothers when they return home to their children and families. Using a ground-up approach, WIRA recruited a small group of mothers in prison to gather their views on what challenges they faced as mothers and what help they needed when they will rejoin their children and families upon release. With the data gathered, WIRA set about to design a 10-session curriculum covering topics such as self-identity, emotion regulation, motherhood, communication with children and adult caregivers.

A pre and post-course survey was designed to evaluate the impact of the intervention. Statistically significant outcomes were seen in terms of changes in knowledge, awareness and behaviour of course participants. WIRA and SPS are now working on a timetable to roll out the course to more women in prison in 2024.

Speakers

Poh Wah Ang

President, Women in Recovery Association, Singapore

Find out more

Dr Asha Rathina Pandi

Head of Research and Lead Analyst, North South Initiative, Selangor, Malaysia

Find out more

×

Poh Wah Ang

President, Women in Recovery Association, Singapore

Poh Wah graduated from the University of Auckland, New Zealand with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology in 1985. She served a 5-month internship with Daytop Village Therapeutic Community, at Swanlake, a drug rehabilitation facility in New York, US in 2001. She was awarded the National Council against Drug Abuse (NCADA) Merit Award (2001) for her 3-year stint in The Turning Point and the Singapore International Foundation (SIF) Special Commendation Award (2012) as project leader, overseeing training for Laotians in drug rehabilitation from 2006 to 2012. She has served on the Board of Women in Recovery as President for many years.

She has been a counsellor since 1991 and has helped more than 1000 drug addicts for the past 30 years. She specialises in individual and group drug counselling. She helped develop the Family Engagement protocol for PFS Family Care when it was established in 2009 and trained their volunteers involved in the family visitation of inmates related to the Angel Tree project. 
She formulated a theoretical framework addressing the recovery needs of drug addicts and implemented a 1-year rehabilitative treatment programme for drug addicts in a residential setting. She held a supervisory role in helping recovering drug addicts to become operational staff in a residential setting. She has been involved in consultative training on a freelance basis with Social Service Institute, Prison Fellowship, Christian Counselling Services, Halfway Houses and Singapore Prison Service and other social service agencies (SSAs) on drug rehabilitation and re-integration matters since the 1990s.

×

Dr Asha Rathina Pandi

Head of Research and Lead Analyst, North South Initiative, Selangor, Malaysia

Dr Asha Rathina Pandi, is the Head of Research and Lead Analyst at the North South Initiative since March 2024. Previously, she held teaching and research positions at Monash University Malaysia, Department of Communications and New Media at National University of Singapore (NUS), Asia Research Institute (ARI), and the Center for Culture-centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) at NUS. Asha received her PhD (2011), and Master’s in Sociology (2005) from the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) at USA. She also holds a Master’s (2000) and Bachelor’s degrees in Urban Planning (1996) from University Technology of Malaysia, and a Graduate Certificate in Global Health and Population Studies from UHM (2012). Asha’s research interests are in the areas of human rights and social justice, community empowermnet, mixed methods, and marginalized populations. She has published in journals of International Development Planning, Journalism, Development Studies, Frontiers in Communication, among others.