🏡 Hearthen
The Hearthen studio interior — warm wooden surfaces and calm lighting
Back to home

A studio built around
the kitchen table

Hearthen was founded in Kuala Lumpur with a single intention: to give families and couples a structured, unhurried place to practise talking with each other.

Why Hearthen exists

The name comes from the hearth — the fire at the centre of a home, the place where people gather without agenda. That image still guides how we work. We create sessions that feel less like programmes and more like a deliberate pause in the week.

Hearthen opened its doors at Jalan Imbi in 2019. The founding team had backgrounds in community facilitation and dialogue practice, and they noticed a gap: there were plenty of services for individuals, but very few structured spaces designed for two or more people who shared a life and needed to talk through something together.

We do not offer counselling, therapy, or any regulated service. We offer well-designed conversations, with someone in the room whose job is to keep things moving and make sure every voice is heard. The conclusions are always yours.

Our guiding principles

Go at the pace of the people in the room

We build rest periods into every session. Nobody is asked to arrive at a conclusion before they are ready.

The facilitator holds the structure, not the outcome

We keep the conversation moving and ensure each voice is heard. We do not advocate for any participant or steer the group toward a particular result.

What is said in the room stays in the room

All sessions are conducted in confidence. Our facilitators do not share session content with anyone outside the participants.

Leave with something tangible

Every participant receives printed materials — a workbook and a prompt card — so the work continues after the session ends.

The facilitation team

Our facilitators come from backgrounds in dialogue practice, community development, and adult education. They are not counsellors and do not work as therapists.

SA

Siti Aminah

Lead Facilitator

Trained in community dialogue facilitation with over a decade working with household groups in the Klang Valley. Leads our Couples Communication Workshops.

RC

Rajan Chandran

Senior Facilitator

Background in adult education and structured group conversation. Specialises in multi-generation household sessions and the Family Communication Year programme.

LW

Lin Wei

Facilitator & Studio Coordinator

Coordinates the studio schedule and facilitates Family Mediation sessions. Previously worked in organisational dialogue practice across Southeast Asia.

How we maintain quality

Every session at Hearthen follows a set of standards that protect participants and ensure consistency across all facilitation work.

Qualified facilitation

All facilitators have completed recognised training in structured dialogue and community facilitation practice before working with participants.

Written agreements summary

Family Mediation sessions close with a written summary of what was discussed and agreed, prepared for participants only.

Strict confidentiality

Session content is not shared with any party outside the room. We do not retain case notes beyond what participants take away with them.

Regular peer review

Facilitators meet monthly to review session structure, share practice observations, and update workshop materials where needed.

Accessible venue

The studio at Jalan Imbi is designed to be comfortable and easy to reach. We consider accessibility needs on request before every session.

Continuously updated materials

Workbooks and prompt cards are reviewed and updated at least once per year to reflect current facilitation practice and participant feedback.

Hearthen and the practice of household dialogue

Kuala Lumpur is a city of households in motion — multigenerational families, couples navigating shared decisions, households adjusting to new members or changing circumstances. The conversations that shape these transitions often happen without structure: in the kitchen late at night, in the car on the way somewhere else, or not at all.

Hearthen provides a different setting. Our studio at Jalan Imbi is a dedicated space for structured conversation — not a counselling room, not a classroom, but something closer to a well-arranged dining room where the agenda is agreed in advance and the facilitator's role is to keep things moving rather than to direct them.

We draw on dialogue facilitation practice developed across community and organisational settings. The methods we use — structured listening rounds, shared naming exercises, collaborative decision-making frameworks — are adapted for household use and delivered without jargon. Participants do not need any prior experience with facilitation or structured conversation.

Our work is educational and facilitative in nature. We support households in having better conversations; we do not assess, diagnose, or treat any condition. For those seeking clinical support, we encourage consultation with an appropriately qualified practitioner.

Find out which session is right for you

Write to us or call the studio and we will talk through your situation before suggesting a session.

Send an Enquiry