Child Protection Week Awards 2009 recipients
Professional (Non-Government) Award
The Professional (Non-Government) Award is for an outstanding contribution to promoting child protection issues in their capacity as a professional working in the child protection (or related) field.
Winner: Ms Pamela Fisher
Ms Fisher is well known in the South East Queensland region for her role as the Manager of the Inala Recognised Entity Brisbane South West Child and Family Support Service.
She is also currently a Director for the Board of Management for the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Protection Peak.
Ms Fisher plays a key role in delivering information to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to promote their understanding about child protection and ways to keep children safe.
Ms Fisher has been at the forefront of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child protection sector in promoting awareness on culturally appropriate practices within the Department of Child Safety.
Ms Fisher is promoting, with the Department of Communities, the best practice which is not about removal of children, but placing support where possible to keep the family together.
If the children are removed due to the child protection issues, she advocates strongly to keep the children with the family and/or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community in accordance with the Child Placement Principle.
Professional (Government) Award
The Professional (Government) Award recognises the outstanding contribution to child protection at a practice, policy or service development level within the public service.
Winner: Dr Kerry Sullivan
Dr Kerry Sullivan has been a leader and advocate for child protection issues locally and statewide for 40 years.
He was on the original Coordinating Committee of Child Abuse for Queensland at its inception in the mid 1970s while he served as the Medical Superintendent of the Mater Childrens Hospital.
Dr Sullivan has been the lead paediatrician involved in child protection on the Gold Coast since 1979.
Dr Sullivan was instrumental in the development of the current SCAN (Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect) system, which is a coordinated multi-agency approach to child protection.
In 2004, he took up an appointment as a full time staff specialist in child protection.
Dr Sullivan has since implemented, developed and now leads a highly functional child protection team in the busiest area of the state.
Dr Sullivan has shown a devotion for almost 40 years to the health of children and families at the Gold Coast and Queensland.
Volunteer Award
The Volunteer Award is for invaluable contributions made by volunteers working in government or non-government agencies.
Winner: Mr Allan Allaway
Allan Allaway has many interests but his greatest concern is for achieving positive outcomes for vulnerable children and their families, particularly those in, or at risk of entering, the child protection system.
Allan’s commitment to child protection and family support was forged through his personal experiences at Neerkol Orphanage, where he spent his first fourteen years.
These experiences had a profound effect on Allan’s life with the result that he now works tirelessly in a voluntary capacity across a range of organisations to improve the child protection and support systems for other vulnerable children and young people.
Allan was influential in bringing the plight of former wards of the state to the public’s attention in the late 1990s and was a significant force in convincing the government of the day to establish the Forde Inquiry into abuse in Queensland institutions.
Regional Program Award
The Regional Program Award is for a program that operates within part of, or across, a whole region to address some aspect of child protection.
Winner: Ms Joanne Ross, Principal Cherbourg State School
Cherbourg State School is an Aboriginal community school in a community of 1,600 residents with a very low socio-economic profile.
Students face many social complexities and challenges as they and their families navigate through multiple layers of disadvantage.
In the face of these challenges, Ms Joanne Ross, the Principal of Cherbourg State School has created a culture of success to nurture resilience, improve academic results and engender positive and safe futures for the children.
Under the guidance of Ms Ross, Cherbourg State School has implemented an initiative entitled A Whole Village.
The initiative is built on the recognition that in order to succeed at school, children need to be healthy and safe, and to have strong connections between their school and the broader culture in which they live.
Education Initiative Award
The Education Initiative Award is for the development of an innovative approach or resource to promote child protection.
Winner: Ms Rachel Kayrooz
A survivor of horrific domestic violence, Ms Kayrooz is a highly sought-after speaker, educator and author on domestic and sexual violence, healthy relationships, self esteem and the single parenting-workforce relationship.
Over the past four years, Ms Kayrooz has educated thousands of high school students from various socio-economic and cultural groups in south-east Queensland about protective behaviours, sexual assault, domestic and family violence, dating violence, responsible behaviours and reporting.
She has also trained teachers, principals and school guidance officers on managing disclosures of abuse.
In addition to conducting relationships education sessions with high school students, Rachel is also conducting research of early childhood (the preschool to Year 3 age group) protective behaviour programs across Australia.
This is Ms Kayrooz’s real passion – to find the best programs, submit her recommendations to the key decision makers and policy developers and see them being implemented all over Australia.
Ms Kayrooz firmly believes that through early childhood protective behaviour programs, there will be a supported focus on establishing right from wrong and safe from unsafe behaviours before inappropriate or harmful behaviours are learned, experienced and/or displayed.
Youth Participation Award
The Youth Participation Award recognises the involvement of young people in a local activity to enhance the wellbeing of children and young people.
Winner: Ms Lee Stuart
Ms Lee Stuart has been involved with the CREATE Foundation for over 10 years and during that time has worked with passion and dedication to improve outcomes for children and young people and give them every opportunity possible to be active participants in their own lives.
Ms Stuart’s number one piece of advice for those working in child protection is that: “Young People in care aren’t a barcode”.
Time and time again Ms Stuart has been there when CREATE or the sector has needed a young person who has not only lived the care system themselves but who is also in touch with what children and young people in care are saying ‘now’.
Certificate of Special Recognition
The Special Recognition - Certificate of Appreciation is in recognition of exceptional commitment to child protection in Queensland.
Presented to: Claude Harvey
Mr Harvey has been pushing his lawnmower raising money and talking to people about child protection for over 10 years.
Every weekend he displays his exceptional commitment to child protection by spending his days pushing his lawnmower around the Gold Coast and its beaches raising money for Bravehearts.
In 2008, Mr Harvey went even further and pushed his mower from the Gold Coast to Sydney.
He is widely known and recognised across the Gold Coast as the ‘Mower Man’ – the man that raises money for disadvantaged or harmed children.
Since Mr Harvey began, he has single-handedly raised more than $122,500 for Bravehearts.
For charities in total, he’s raised more than $400,000.
- Last updated
- 7 September 2009
