Christine is based on the sunny coast of Western Australia in the seaside town of Geraldton.
Creating a safer world for all children
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I’m an author, specialist in Protective Behaviours education and a student at ECU completing a Graduate Certificate in Psychology and currently studying a Master of Teaching.
I have worked in community services across various sectors for over 30 years. I detoured for a few years and completed a Bachelor of Arts in Writing. It was formally an English Literature degree, and when I journeyed back to study the early philosophers, I was perplexed with where and how they devised their theories, which many today have been challenged and proven wrong. I didn’t know then that many years later, I would find a life-changing cause that would intervene and prevent the silencing and abuse of children.
In 2013 I started working in the Protective Behaviours (PB) education field. The program’s objectives crossed over into many strategies with how I had been working with vulnerable children and low-socioeconomically families. There were always conversations about domestic and family violence and cycles of abuse. People were feeling unsafe and didn’t know what to do about it.
The (PB) trainer Andrea Musulin became my mentor and inspiration to pursue further training and commence delivering the PB program in schools in Geraldton, WA, with many schools requesting the delivery of the program to students. Early Learning centres also requested weekly PB sessions, and another not-for-profit partnered to deliver parent information sessions in the community.
In 2016/17 the cause in the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse shifted dramatically when the Hon. Sue Ellery, Minister for Education and Training, included a new quality standard and the implementation of Protective Behaviours education in all WA schools. The teaching was mandatory for every child attending school.
My training continued with completing Certificate IV in Training and Assessment and the Foundations in Facilitation, which was an eye-opening workshop in delivering programs to students and adults.
As the cultural focus shifted from a child protection policy to child-safe standards in organisations and the inclusion of Respectful Relationships Education (RRE), it opened the opportunity to deliver Love Bites (RRE Program) in local high schools. It will always be a moment when I had the privilege of engaging with so many groups of young people in a safe space where they could pour out their stories, heartaches and hopes for their generation. I would always encourage them at the end of the sessions that the knowledge they had been given could help them make better choices, impart it onto others, be strong by-standers and be the change to reduce the statistics of the abuse that was happening to girls and boys before the age of 18 years old. In response, a voice in the teenage crowd often yelled something like, ‘Not just reduce it, we can stop it.’
In 2019, I was invited by PB West to participate in the Protective Behaviours Advanced Practitioner course. I had heard of Di Margetts, International Protective Behaviours elder and creator of the social and emotional context of Protective Behaviours, through previous PB workshops where trainers would share the PB story. Di worked with Peg West, the originator of the program. If I had been thinking of changing fields in my career, Di Margetts snapped my focus back on the PB path. Her insights into the PB process and facilitation style provoked me to do more and do it better. Sadly, Di Margetts passed away in 2023. She is honoured as a pioneer of PB. I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to learn from her wisdom and understanding of the PB process and its absolute necessity.
Somewhere in those incredibly hopeful years of training and empowering kids, I discovered one of my favourite activities was teaching PB to young children and reading them picture books. I was amazed at the children’s capacity to grasp the safety concepts of the program. The challenge was searching for age-appropriate PB picture books.
I have listened to many stories over the years when engaging with kids, families, and teachers. Some of these stories were tough to hear, some made me laugh, and many made me cry, but they all inspired me to write my own PB children’s picture book series.
When I’m not writing, creating, or studying, I love reading and tinkering with my own fiction story.
In a perfect world, I would also be a scriptwriter, film director and the long-lost sister of James Cameron.