Teresa: making a difference in the child protection sector

Q: What drew you to study your degree?

Teresa: I’ve always been really interested in child protection and what motivating factors operate within the system for us to get to where we are now. Coming from an out-of-home care background I’ve always wanted to understand it from the other side.

I wanted to understand how social work intersects with criminology, how the criminal justice system contributes to the welfare system in Australia and vice versa.

Q: What kind of career path do you have in mind after graduation?

T: I’ve got a couple of ideas. The first is working as a child protection caseworker in NSW. I’m also thinking about a role in Canberra, a graduate position with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, working on policy and legislation. Option three is working in intelligence, perhaps within ASIO or the ACIC.

I’m not sure what I’ll do yet, or if I’ll do any of those things, but hopefully I’ll end up somewhere I really enjoy.

Q: What qualities have helped you get where you are today?

T: Just my desire to get on with it and to not let anything that’s making my life unjust defeat me. When I was in care there was such a sense of injustice and how unfair everything was, and how I wish I was in a different situation, around different people and living in a different place. There were so many times that I wished I had someone to come and rescue me, someone who would swoop in and say ‘I’ll take you away from this’.

What helped me continue through all of that was my desire to be that for someone else. I want to be in a position where I can develop that relationship with a young person and give them that sense of reassurance.

Q: What are some of the challenges of completing a tertiary education when you can’t rely on family support?

T: You start to think about tertiary education at the end of high school and start choosing your uni courses. I saw a lot of my friends struggling with what to pick.

But I was struggling with the fact that I had to leave care and move out from a group home that I was living in. I didn’t know where I was going to go because I didn’t have family. Tertiary education just didn’t seem achievable at the time, it didn’t seem like something that I would be able to do.

And then I felt loneliness. Moving out of the family home is an experience, shopping by yourself, going to work. I was doing that at the age of 17. I was living by myself, I was working and I felt that I was doing all these very much adult things but I wasn’t an adult. That level of loneliness and despondence I felt, I felt very much abandoned.

Q: How did you feel when you learnt you received the scholarship?

T: I felt so immensely privileged. During my childhood growing up in care and through my high school years I felt like I didn’t belong with my peers. I didn’t feel as though I was able to have the same high school experience as them, do the same sports and have social experiences. When I was awarded the scholarship I began to imagine the number of ways I could begin to truly live my life.

Q: How are you using the scholarship?

T: I spent money on rent, utility bills (water and electricity and gas, all those really fun things), my phone, groceries, and a laptop (so I didn’t have to use this 10-year-old thing that was slowly breaking down every time I opened it at uni in class).

The scholarship has alleviated so much pressure from life, and I don’t have to worry that I won’t make my next rent.

Q: What would have been different without the scholarship?

T: Before I applied for the scholarship I’d had to leave a group home, I had never lived on my own before, I was finishing up high school and I was working a retail job at Officeworks. I genuinely wouldn’t have been able to pay my rent and support myself and go to university. I’ve continued working but not as much, so I can focus on uni.

It made me realise that education is so important to progress and get where I want to be. If I wasn’t able to go to uni I think I would have felt very stuck and not know what I needed to do next to get the role and employment I wanted.

Q: Are you proud of yourself?

T: It’s difficult to applaud yourself when you’ve come from a position where no one’s ever done that for you. No one’s ever recognised that you’re able to achieve something that’s meaningful.

What I now realised is there’s so much you can achieve in life – why not be proud of it, why not celebrate yourself and how hard you work to get things? I think I’m still learning how to congratulate myself, how to celebrate myself, how to be proud of my achievements, and how to use that emotion to motivate myself to keep going.

About the Tertiary Scholarship Program

The Sisters of Charity Foundation awards tertiary scholarships to young people from out-of-home care backgrounds. Financial support helps recipients afford university or TAFE study expenses (course fees; textbooks; technology; and attending workshops, networking events and internships) as well as the cost of living on their own with no parental support. The scholarship lets them focus on their studies, rather than having to hold down multiple jobs or work full-time hours.

Main image L to R: Bec, wife of scholarship recipient Danny; Danny; Teresa; Teresa’s partner Ben.